Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs)

Developing countries need environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) to ensure compliance with (a) multilaterally-agreed targets in some MEAs (b) certain environmental requirements in export markets; and (c) improving environmental quality and achieving sustainable development. Discussions on trade, environment and development in UNCTAD, CSD and the CTE have referred to the issue of access to and transfer of technology. While focusing on the relationship between the generation of, access to and transfer of ESTs and the TRIPs Agreement, the CTE has also discussed the issue of access to and transfer of technology in relation to environmental requirements and market access, eco-labelling, and trade liberalization, domestically prohibited goods and MEAs.

UNCTAD is carrying out a series of activities aimed at promoting the diffusion of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) to developing countries.

Project "Strengthening capacities for trade and environment policy co-ordination", focusing on India, will carry out policy analyses with a view to:

(a) identifying ways and means to take greater advantage of existing transfer of technology provisions in MEAs, both at the national and international levels (e.g. the work of the respective Conferences of Parties and the financial mechanisms);

(b) enhancing the role of the private sector in facilitating access to and transfer of ESTs;

(c) enhancing understanding of possible implications for India of market-based and other "innovative" approaches, particularly concerning their effects on access to and transfer of ESTs;

(d) examining the relationship between intellectual property rights and the generation and transfer of ESTs. Building on this project, further work on ESTs is under preparation.

Project "The role of business partnerships in promoting sustainable development", focusing on the lack of access and diffusion of biotechnologies as idenitified by the Government of India, will carry out policy analyses with a view to:

(a) examine biotechnologies derived from public sponsorship of research and development (R&D) as well as public/private sector partnerships in research on biotechnology, and their possible contribution to India's efforts to achieve economic and environmental objectives, including agricultural production, food security and the preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;

(b) promote the dissemination of biotechnologies derived from public sponsorship of research and development (R&D) as well as public/private sector partnerships in biotechnology research, in particular in the agricultural sector;

(c) develop concrete mechanisms for facilitating the diffusion of environmentally-sound biotechnologies, particularly when the donor support is withdrawn.

UNCTAD is also carrying out a project on the use of economic and supportive regulatory instruments for enhancing environmentally and economically sustainable management of environmentally problematic natural resources in developing countries. Work currently focuses on the case of primary and secondary lead.

Activities involve considerable analytical and empirical research, which will be brought before multi-stakeholder advisory panels on enhancing sound national management of lead, as a natural resource, including its environmentally and economically viable recovery and recycling. Particular emphasis will be placed on creating an economic environment conducive to the dissemination and effective use of ESTs. A further focus of the work is the integration of resource management activities in the informal sector into the formal part of the economy, avoiding social hardship and resource shortages.

For more information on this particular project concerning ESTs, see : "The Creation of Multi-stakeholder Advisory Panels on Environmentally Sound and Economically Viable Management of Secondary Lead in India and the Philippines ".