Mr. Suriya Juangroongruangkit, Minister of Industry revealed to the new on March 2021 that the Ministry of Industry has set a policy to promote and develop entrepreneurial potential and competitiveness in current situation including transformation of business operation to be more environmentally friendly according to the green industry policy and Industry 4.0 policy. Both of the policies are in line with the government’s new economic model called BCG, a model that is a holistic economic development in 3 areas namely; Bio Economy, Circular Economy, and Green Economy which aims to raise the Thai industrial sector to meet with international level which all business must be green and pay attention to community safety. With the goal of continuing economic development with steadily and sustainably growth.

Minister of Industry has instructed Department of Industrial Works (DIW) to strongly encourage every factories in its supervision (currently approximately 71.130 factories in 2021) throughout the country to adopt green industry concept with a goal that within the year 2015, all factories have to obtain green industry certifications. The goal is resulting from green industry promotion and development action plan B.E. 2564 – 2580 (2017-2037) which focuses on management efficiency enhancement, promote and supervise environmental quality of factory, creating public awareness and understanding of the green industry program. The policy has expected to upgrade Thailand’s green industry program into ASEAN and international standard in the future.

Thailand ratified Johannesburg declaration on sustainable development on 2002 and Manila declaration on green industry in Asia on 2009. Since then, the government of Thailand has set up a policy on Green GDP and Green Economy. Ministry of Industry (MOI) of Thailand has committed to develop green industry policy and later set up a strategy for industrial development based on ecology and society friendly industry concept. MOI’s Green industry project was officially launched in September 2012 with target on improving image of industrial sector, building trust from community, and creating green economy. This project is an MOI’s organization-wide project which including provincial industrial offices, institutes and industrial estates to raise the awareness of its industrial firms on social and environmental issues and to reward the environmentally friendly industries by giving GI certificate with the 5 levels Green Industry (GI) mark.

 

Green Industry logo

Thailand Green Industry’s webpage
http://greenindustry.diw.go.th/index.php/th/

MOI definition of “green industry” is the manufacturing firm that commits to do business in an environmental friendly way to achieve sustainability goals by developing and improving continuously on production process and environmental management including corporate social responsibility both internally and externally throughout the supply chain. The expected outcome of green industry program development is that

  1. Reduce environmental impacts and complaints caused by industrial sector;
  2. Create positive image and attitude of the public sector causing well accepted from the community;
  3. Create green job and employment;
  4. Reduce operating cost and increase competitiveness; and
  5. Create marketing opportunity thru “green” product and process.

Green Industry certificates are classified to 5 levels which can be explained below,

  • 1st Level – Green Commitment: An organization shall have policy and commitment to reduce environmental impacts and effectively communicate among the various levels of the organization.
  • 2nd Level – Green Activity: An organization shall establish and implement program(s) to reduce environmental impacts based on the policy and commitment from level 1.
  • 3rd Level – Green System: An organization shall have either systematic environmental management (including monitoring, assessment and review for continuous improvement) including well-recognized environmental management award and certificate.
  • 4th Level – Green Culture: An organization shall demonstrate everyone’s accountability on environmental and social concerns as an integral part of the organization’s culture.
  • 5th Level – Green Network: An organization shall incorporate entities of their supply chains into the green industry umbrella.

MOI has set up a committee on promotion and development of green industry on April 2018 with Permanent Secretary of Industry as chairman with representative from every agency such as Department of Industrial Works, Department of Primary Industry, Department of Industrial Promotion, Thailand Industrial Standard Institute, Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, Board of Investment, and Federation of Thai Industries. The committee oversee development of the program and benefit that certified factory will obtain.

There are regulations that MOI has announced under green industry policy which can be summarized as followed,

Ministry of Industry Announcement on Registration of Green Industry Personal and Auditor Unit B.E. 2560 (2017).

This regulation designates,

    • requirement and qualification for green industry auditors and experts which must have a Bachler degree on engineering or science and pass the green industry training program.
    • procedure and related forms for auditor registration.
    • duties of green industry auditors and experts
    • cancel of registration when auditor submit filthy report.

Department of Industrial Works Announcement on Training Course on Green Industry Auditor B.E. 2560 (2017).

This regulation designates,

    • requirement and qualification for organizer of GI auditor training course such as capital fund, having qualified speakers.
    • procedure and related forms for GI training course organizer registration.
    • Department of Industrial Work can assign an organization to be GI auditor examination organizer which cannot be the same as training course organizer.
    • GI training curriculum which composed of 1) general knowledge on environment and environmental management system 2) knowledge on environmental and factory regulation 3) social responsibility (ISO26000) and 4) requirement on green industry program.

Ministry of Industry Announcement on Procedure for Certification on Green Industry level 1 to level 5 B.E. 2560 (2017).

This regulation designates,

    • requirement and qualification for factories that want to join green industry program.
    • certify procedure in each level of green industry.
    • criteria for factories that already got certificate such as how to use green industry logo, cooperation with Ministry of Industry, collection of any complaint cases which might occur.
    • criteria for certificate extension such as yearly audit, suspicious of misconduct.
    • criteria for cancellation of certificate such as if the factory receive serious complaint that committee on promotion and development of green industry found valid.

Ministry of Industry Announcement on Green Industry Promotion and Development Policy B.E. 2557 (2014).

This regulation designates,

    • definition of green industry and each of its GI level.
    • MOI is authority responsible for certifying factories under green industry program.
    • criteria for green industry certification will be announced by MOI.

Ministry of Industry Announcement on Criteria and Guideline for Green Industry Level 1 to 5 B.E. 2557 (2014). This regulation designates,

    • criteria to become Green Industry in each of the level.
    • detail of all supporting documents necessary to get certified in each of GI level are shown in the appendix.

 

Benefit that factory will receive when being certified with Green Industry have been changed throughout the program. The current benefit is shown in the table below,

Benefit Green Industry Level
1 2 3 4 5
Get Green Industry certification ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Using of Green Industry logo for promotion/advertisement ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Receive Green Industry Plate ✓ ✓
Advertisement and promotion of product in Green Industry mini magazine ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Automatic approval for transportation of waste out of the factory area. (need to have all the qualification according to Department of Industrial Works announcement on certification for transportation of waste or waste materials outside the factory area automatically through electronic systems B.E. 2561) ✓ ✓ ✓
Eligible for “Thailand Trust Mark” logo (with some other requirements) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Product will be considered as “green label product” which being support by government “green procurement” policy ✓ ✓
Considered as an equivalent of ISO14001 for level 3 GI and above by Board of Investment which is a condition for getting tax incentive for project with investment cost for more than 10 million baht. ✓ ✓ ✓

 

Future plan

Mr. Prakob Vivithachinda, Director General of the Department of Industrial Works, updated to the news recently that the Ministry of Industry has promoted and developed factory owner under green industry program which that resulted in approximately 20,000 factories that have already got a certificate on green industry. With January 2021’s statistic showing that some 110 factories have been using Green Industry logo on its product packaging to signify that their manufacturing processes are environmentally friendly. This year, Department of Industrial work is running 3 projects under Green Industry program namely,

  • Project to promote factories to become green industry;
  • Project to transfer production technology with is undergoing in many factory sectors compose of using of clean technology, reducing water consumption and promoting green industries;
  • Project to promote factories upgrade by using the concept of sustainability, environmental management system and circular economy.

Department of Industrial Works has been developing Green Industry Information System to facilitate such program, creating an online learning and training system (e-learning) and Green Industry manual that compiles operating principles, criteria and conditions along with posting relating documents on website where businesses operator can apply to Green Industry program and request certificate by internet system.