Indonesia as one of the steel producers in the world has not moved to regulate green standardization. In fact, other steel-producing countries have already done so. This is due to the domestic industry which is still far from being expected.
Chairman of the Indonesian Iron and Steel Industry Association (IISIA) Silmy Karim said green standardization for the domestic steel industry is just a plan. Indonesia currently also does not have a roadmap for greening the steel industry.
“Basic ones such as SNI [Indonesian National Standard] have not been regulated in all upstream-downstream product lines, especially advanced ones such as green labels,” said Silmy, Friday (22/4/2022).
The urgency of implementing green standardization on steel products is driven by the preparation of the label obligation in several export destination markets such as Australia, the United States, and Europe.
So far, to meet the demands of green standardization of a number of these export destinations, efforts have depended on each steel producer.
According to him, indeed efforts to label domestic steel products with green standards need to be accelerated because apart from being related to exports, it will also become a benchmark for the quality of incoming imported products.
If not immediately pursued, Indonesia could become a waste market for steel products without green standardization.
“Indonesia should also anticipate because, in addition to matters of Indonesian products for the export market, it is also related to incoming imported products,” he explained.
Contacted separately, the Chief Strategy Officer of PT Steel Pipe Industry of Indonesia Tbk. (ISSP) Johanes Edward said the biggest challenge in this regard is the absence of a green standardization body for steel.
Meanwhile, the green label in a number of ISSP export destination countries is not yet mandatory.
“So far it has not been mandatory. What is mandatory is UL [Underwriters Laboratories, a product safety organization in the US] approved, which has indeed been obtained by Spindo,” he said.
Meanwhile, efforts to reduce carbon emissions are currently being carried out by the company by diverting some of its power use to solar panels. Since two years ago, said Johanes, these efforts have been continuously made so that the portion of the use of new and renewable energy is increasingly dominant.
