BANDA ACEH: Two subsidiaries of palm oil company PT Astra Agro Lestari (Astra Group) have won two environmental awards for best environmental management from the Environmental

Impact Control Agency (Bapedalda) in Aceh.

The two subsidiaries are PT Perkebunan Lembah Bakti (PLB) in Singkil Utara sudistrict, and PT Karya Tanah Subur (KTS) in Kaway XVI subdistrict of West Aceh , which are respectively the first and second winner of the 2011 environmental awards.

“We’ve made our decision based on our monitoring and evaluation of 26 palm oil mills in the region during the last three months,” Aceh Bapedalda Office Chairman Husaini Syamaun was quoted by Serambi as saying in Banda Aceh.

According to Iqbal, person in charge of SHE (Safety, Health, and Environment) PT KTS, the Bapedalda’s monitoring and evaluation team has evaluated the companies’ compliance with all environmental regulations concerned, compliance with environmental management standards set in the document of the environmental impact analysis (Amdal), compliance with the requirement of regular reporting of Amdal, compliance with the waste treatment requirement, mills’ cleanliness, compliance to the standard of liquid waste treatment and air emissions, as well as the corporate social responsibility programs implemented by the companies for people living nearby their business operations.

He said that the Bapedalda team had conducted a field audit to collect data and check for themselves the environmental management activities in every company.

The success has been resulted from the commitment of the Aceh Area management to consistently implement the environmental management principles in the plantation areas. “But we won’t be complacent over winning of the awards. There are still some shortcomings as had been discovered also by the Bapedalda team,” he said.

Director of PT KTS Azhar Rahman noted that PT KTS is not only owned by the Astra Group as it also belongs to all employees and people living around its business operations. “If PT KTS manages to improve its performance then it will also benefit all employees and all people around, at least in the forms of facility improvement and other kinds of assistances,” he added. (*)