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- Paper Pulp Mills - Uruguay
- Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
- Climate Change and Human Rights
Argentina Sets National Environmental Insurance Requirements
Buenos Aires, December 2007 – The National Environment and Sustainable Development Secretariat (SAYDS) and the Finance Ministry of Argentina agreed this month on the specific regulatory content of national environmental insurance requirements for industries.
Environmental insurance , which became mandatory for high environmental risk sectors through the 2002 National Environmental Act, had not as of yet been implemented, due to failure to iron out technical environmental and financial specifications on how to put the law into operation. Earlier this year, the National Environment, and Finance Secretariats created a collaborative commission to work through points of common interest, such as green loans for small enterprises, finance for industrial cleanup or for the introduction of new environmentally friendly technologies, and to define the specifications for environmental insurance.
The insurance law and its new regulatory framework seek principally to ensure that industries properly evaluate environmental risk and take specific measures in their production processes to avoid environmental harm. As coverage begins for impacts that are first manifest following the contracting of the insurance, insurance issuers will be driven to conduct controls and audits of the environmental quality of the companies they insure, as well as the veracity of company stated Environmental Impact Assessments and reporting, or face the risk of having to cover the financial costs of environmentally improper industrial activity. This new aspect adds an important private sector led regulatory control on industrial environmental quality.
Under the 2002 law, all individuals and juridical persons, public and private, that carry out activities that could place the environment at risk, must contract environmental insurance that covers the potential financial cost of repairing eventual damage. The National Superintendence for Insurance, which operates under the Finance Secretariat, will approve environmental insurance policies, following consultation and authorization by the Environment Secretariat.
The environmental authority (in this case the SAYDS) is the agency that oversees implementation ensures that environmental accidents are mitigated.
The content of the environmental insurance component was developed with participation from the insurance sector and industry which now must apply the law.
The new regulatory agreement is also an important indicator showing greater collaboration between the National Environment and Finance Agencies.
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