Background:

Bangladesh is an over populated country with severe trend of environmental degradations. After the independence, ample of environmental initiatives have been taken by government and NGOs addressing number of environmental issues, but still the environmental condition of the country is being worst.

In 1992, after the Rio Summit (United Nation's Conference on Environment and Development) a new era had been started globally. As a party of different MEA's (Multileteral Environmental Agreements), Bangladesh has been obligated to take measures on different environment and development issues. In 2000, new decade came with new environmental concepts; now Environment is being considered as integrated element of the development process. The relationship between economic development and environmental degradation was first placed on the international agenda in 1972, at the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm. Overall, the environment continued to deteriorate, and such problems as ozone depletion, global warming, and biodiversity loss and water pollution grew more serious, while the destruction of natural resources accelerated at an alarming rate.

So far we've observed in Bangladesh that people think the protection /conservation of environment is the sole responsibility of Government and the funding of the projects on environmental protection must be come from the development partners (Donors). And implementation of the projects should be done by NGOs, either directly or by sub contacted by the respective government agencies.

Our goal is to change this tradition a bit and create effective awareness among the country people regarding environmental degradations and specify their responsibility on how they could act to reverse the Environmental degradation trend.

Our Vision:

to increase environmental awareness among the country people

Our Goal:

to promote Environmental Management System in every sectors of Bangladesh

Our Objective:

	Create sensitization regarding economic viability of environmental protection issues.
	Building capacity at different level/sectors regarding environmental conservation issues.
	Take steps to promote environmental education throughout the country and provide support to Government, Non Government and International organizations.

Our Approach:

We’d like to do things in collaboration with other respective organizations.

The activities of EnviroConcern:

1. Provide training on diverse environmental issues.

1.1 Environmental Management System for Industries comply with the ISO 14001
Nowadays, Bangladesh is facing a lot of problem in international market to promote different products and the global market is becoming more competitive than the previous time. Other developing countries are also trying to occupy the existing Bangladeshi market. At this moment Bangladeshi companies should take initiative to prove them as updated as other companies in developed countries.

Globally, ISO certificate is considered as a tool for removing the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), an agreement imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In order to reduce the emergence of unnecessary obstacles to trade, the TBT strongly encourages WTO members to base their product standards (whether mandatory or voluntary) on international standards, as well as their procedures for the assessment of conformity. In using international standards, countries create fewer national product requirements, thereby facilitating the task of exporters. An exporter in country A, exporting product X to countries B and C, would not have produce product X once to the standard of country B, then to the standard of country C. He/she would simply have to produce it once, meeting the international standard for it and selling it wherever that international standard is recognized.

Considering the issues in mind, the EnviroConcern would arrange few training programs on ISO 14001:2002 that is the ISO standard on Environment Management System for the representative of different industries.

1.2 Integrated Solid Waste Management System in a Municipality

Managing solid waste properly is becoming one of the major problems of urban life in Bangladesh. Lack of resources and skilled manpower is making the problem more critical.br>

EnviroConcern would provide training on Implementing Community Based Solid Waste Management System in Municipality area for the staff of City Corporations, Paurashavas, NGOs and CBOs.

1.3 Managing Wastes in a Healthcare Facility (In-house Medical Waste Management System)

The proper way to handle the waste and its disposal has become one of the major problems in the world. In addition with the other municipal waste, the issue of management of medical waste is becoming a major concern throughout the globe, especially in the lower income countries where financial inability and knowledge gap affect the choice of appropriate technology. As the people of these countries are not aware about the hazard of medical waste, they are disposing a significant amount of Medical waste in the municipal Garbage bin. Dispose of untreated medical waste has been continuously posing deadly threat to the human health and Environment. In Dhaka we observed that medical wastes are already being exposed as a great problem for the city dwellers and bad impacts of these wastes are also being noticed significantly; e.g. Hepatitis B, C and Typhoid are spreading in an alarming pace throughout the city.

Last few years, a lot of studies have already been taken place on medical waste management in Bangladesh, at the same time a number of seminars, workshops and other activities are also being conducted on this issue. Ministry of Environment and Forest and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been taken different initiatives and drafted Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules./p>

Before finalizing the Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, the Healthcare Facilities should prepare themselves and train their staffs on how to operate proper In-house Medical Waste Management in their premises.

EnviroConcern would provide training throughout the country on implementing Medical Waste Management System both in-house Medical Waste Management and integrated Medical Waste Management System in Cities.

2. Develop and promote Medical Waste Management Kits for Healthcare facilities.

3. Operate Medical Waste Management in Dhaka city

4. Facilitate to collect and process data for the researcher studying abroad.

This is an interesting initiative of EnviroConcern. Thousands of Bangladeshi students are studying abroad. Some of them are doing MS or PhD or other higher degrees. But most of them are selecting their thesis field in Bangladesh. So, within their study period they have to come Bangladesh at least once to collect information and data necessary to obtain the deserving degree. But for whole process require a bulk amount of money.

If we could facilitate these students by collecting documents for literature review and conduct surveys that could be helpful for the students and save their time and money as well.

EnviroConcern would provide the document for the students those who are studying for higher degrees on environment and development related subjects in abroad.

5. Environmental Events Management (Conduct seminars/workshop/symposium on national and global emerging issues).

6. EnviroConcern -News Letter.

	ICTPs events/news
	Environment in Bangladesh. Update
	International negotiation and the position of Bangladesh

7. EnviroConcern web site: an ultimate place for searching Environmental news and events.