No smoke without ire: Kevin Dunion considers the efficiency of international environmental agreements for industry.

Industry is playing a new role on the international environmental stage - that of nature's saviour.

''We are no longer part of the problem only part of the solution,'' boasted Swedish industrialist Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, at a recent meeting of the OECD in Paris.

It may have been the case in the 1970s that industry was the main polluter, he admits, but since then emissions per unit of production have been reduced by 90%.

Furthermore, recent improvements have shown both environmental and cost benefits - so-called eco efficiencies. ''We have made savings of $64m from environmental and resource efficiencies'', Proctor and Gamble's George Carpenter told the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York last month.

With figures like this you would imagine that everyone from shareholders to environmentalists would be delighted. So why was there a frisson between the groups at the recent round of European and international meetings which addressed the concept of responsible entrepreneurship? In essence industry is saying we can put our own house in order; we do not need mandatory targets and government regulations to improve the environment.

Dom Baussano of Haussman Corporation voiced industry's opinion: ''We oppose the one-size-fits-all approach,'' he says.

By contrast environmentalists argue that it has primarily been regulation or the threat of it which has prompted improvements. To regard environmental laws as an unwarranted imposition upon efficient and competitive companies fails to answer the question put by green economist Paul Hawken, who asked: ''which came first, the regulations or the violations of societal standards which called them forth?''

In any case industry may be overstating its successes.The flagship of voluntary agreements is the Responsible Care Programme of the chemical industry - promising a transparent account of year-by-year reductions in polluting emissions. The programme was reviewed in the UK after three years. Just over a half of the firms involved had made returns (as required) for each of the three years and 26% not at all. Only 35% gave site-by-site waste emissions information, 30% of which reported a worsening of environmental impact.

The northern world is littered with industry concordats, voluntary agreements, joint working parties, and environmental charters. Yet any reasonable observer is bound to conclude that the rhetoric far exceeds the reality.

It appears that politicians agree, reacting to this charm offensive with as much scepticism as encouragement. Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, has pointed out that more than a third of the top 350 companies in the UK publish no environmental information whatsoever. Despite the threat of global warming, only 40 quantify their greenhouse-gas emissions. He would like to see more voluntary reporting, using techniques such as the Global Warming Indicator for Companies. But he has said, ''If companies do not follow this course of action, I do not rule out mandatory action.''

Unless there is such a willingness by governments and international agencies to act on behalf of societal interests, the agenda will be set by what industry finds to be financially acceptable while others will hide behind the green veneer presented by the more progressive companies. Mr Micossi (European Commission Director General, Industry) says: ''There is a powerful tendency in industry to free ride, stall, do everything at the last minute and retain the right to lobby against.'' A prime example is the Global Climate Coalition, an industry grouping which lobbied at Kyoto against greenhouse gas curbs and argues that climate change is either not happening or is natural. Its membership includes Exxon and, until last month, Shell.

Friends of the Earth and others are no longer taking industry assurances at face value. Globally, a coalition of environmental, trade union, and social groups at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development secured an undertaking to have the various industry voluntary agreements subjected to an independent international assessment.

Closer to home we want to see some observable action which demonstrates that sustainable development is being taken seriously. Many trends are going in wrong directions - waste volumes increase, while paper recycling is close to collapse as many councils, such as Fife, suspend collections; CO2 emissions are on the rise, as economic upturn and transport growth threaten the government targets accepted at Kyoto.

And, although every working week you could attend a conference on sustainable development, there is precious little evidence of strategic change in the Scottish Office, investment agencies, or the business community.

Aggrieved voices will point to initiatives being pursued by Scottish Borders Enterprise, or ScottishPower's newly established Environment Forum or the attempts to build sustainability into the Clyde Valley Structure Plan. But if every time there is criticism of the lack of genuine progress, a few isolated examples or pilot projects are rushed out to suggest that we are on the way to sustainability, then this proves my point.

Such manufactured optimism, as it has been called seems to depend on campaigning organisations keeping quiet about deficiencies for fear that we stall fragile initiatives which corporate environmentalists have crafted. Of course we welcome and contribute to examples of good practice. But it is right to ask whether such initiatives live up to their claims and whether they are undermined by, or indeed mask, business-as-usual economic development strategies. Our job, globally and locally, is to provide such a reality check.

n Kevin Dunion is director of Friends of the Earth Scotland and chairman of Friends of the Earth International.