ABSTRACT

Since 1972 the country has had a set of established regulations for the production sector; however, the environmental management of production activities in Colombia was then primarily a question of trying to meet legal requirements established by the government. The Ministry of the Environment has undergone a reform which includes the creation within the Ministry of the Sustainable Development General Direction to encourage the clean production policy. The state has been working on several economic instruments to encourage environmental management. The Environment Ministry and the Ministry of Economic Development have been working on a joint basis in order to establish a national accreditation and certification system for environmental management systems pursuant to International Organisation for Standardization 14001. The lack of a network of laboratories to help the process of identifying environmental problems and monitoring is also a serious handicap that needs much investment but, recently; the government has been working on the idea of laboratory certification.