Evaluation of the environmental impacts of a Cleaner Production Agreement by frozen fish facilities in the Biobío Region, Chile Alberto Bezama a, * , Hugo Valeria b , Marco Correa c , Nora Szarka a, d a BSB Engineering, Canelo 158, Higueras, Talcahuano, Chile b Regional Secretary for Cleaner Production, Región del Biobío, Lincoyán 41-4, Concepción, Chile c AMBIA Environmental Services, Obispo Fuenzalida 1100, D-206, Chiguayante, Chile d Deutsches Biomasse Forschungs Zentrum (DBFZ), Torgauer Str.116, D-04347 Leipzig, Germany article info Article history: Received 16 June 2011 Received in revised form 14 December 2011 Accepted 27 December 2011 Available online 2 January 2012 Keywords: Fish industry Cleaner Production Agreement Cleaner production impacts Public private partnerships Voluntary agreements Environmental impacts abstract The six biggest frozen fish processing companies in Chile signed a Cleaner Production Agreement with the Regional Cleaner Production Secretary, supported by several public institutions related to health, labor risk, and environment. The overall objective of the Agreement was the incorporation of cleaner production measures for frozen fish installations in order to increase production efficiency, to reduce pollution at source, to improve the management of industrial liquid and solid waste, as well as to incorporate upgrading and recycling measures. The implementation phase took two years, in which three audits were carried out, whose results are analyzed in this work. The most important achievements of the implemented measures were the reduction of water consumption (28%), solid waste generation (40%) and energy consumption (24%). Especially important was the implementation of sound manage- ment systems that encouraged employee participation, which had a strong effect on diminishing the accident rates of all partner companies (18%) during the study period. Finally, after establishing the basis of quality standards in the processing facilities, it is suggested that the forthcoming renewal Agreements should include further improvements such as incorporating more steps of the products value chain, following a lifecycle approach (e.g. fishing, packaging, transport), into the sectorial evaluation. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1.1. Historical development of the Chilean seafood industry Since 1978, Chile has become home of one of the first major fishing industries worldwide due to the abundance of marine resources e especially pelagic fish such as mackerel e and the investments made by the private sector and promoted by the government. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, fishmeal was the flagship product, not only by volume but by quality. The upper range of its protein content (67%) opened the doors of fish flour’s most demanding markets of the day: the Federal Republic of Ger- many, Japan and South Africa. After the consolidation experienced in the early 80s, the fishing industry in the south central area experienced a period marked by sustained growth. However, from the second half of the 1990’s, the industry was affected by a crisis caused by the reduced availability of mackerel and a lack of tools to control the species over the long term with adequate regulation of the fishing processes. The regulatory framework established with the enactment of the Fisheries Act of 1991 and based on the control effort was insufficient and needed to be adapted to the new reality. In 1997 it became clear that there was an imbalance between fishing capacity and available resources in Chile, since in those years there was an oversized fleet; the industry faced closures and “El Niño” phenomenon for the first time. At that time, it was imperative to introduce a new way of managing resources; jobs were cut and catches dropped by half. Against this, the industry adopted a method of adding value to products, and the export of frozen goods became one of the best options. Nation-wide there are currently ca. 480 frozen fish processing plants, from which 13 plants manufacture frozen products in the Biobío region with Quality Assurance Programs for exporting these goods. 1.2. Analysis of the production processes of the frozen fish industry and identification of sectorial environmental aspects Most companies in the Biobio region have frozen jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) as their main product. The production of * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ56 41 2583872. E-mail addresses: alberto.bezama@bsbingenieros.com (A. Bezama), hvaleria@ cpl.cl (H. Valeria), mcorrea@ambia.cl (M. Correa), nora.szarka@dbfz.de (N. Szarka). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.12.029 Journal of Cleaner Production 26 (2012) 95e100