Reservoir Cooperatives Achieve Trust In Managing The First Circuit Economic Financing Service Fund From BPDLH

Photo: Doc. Danone Indonesia

JAKARTA - The South Tangerang Recycle Business Unit (RIBU), which was initially accompanied by AQUA, is believed to be one of the first recipients of environmental funding services from the Indonesian government.

President Joko Widodo handed over the certificate to Listiarsih as Chair of the Empowerment Cooperative at the New Renewable Energy Forestry Environment Festival (LIKE) 2, at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), on Friday, August 9, 2024 accompanied by Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar, and Acting Governor of DKI Jakarta Heru Budi Hartono.

Taking the theme 10 Years of Work for Sustainability', Festival LIKE 2 is an agenda that summarizes the accumulation of work and corrective steps in the fields of Environment, Climate, Forestry and Energy (specifically renewable energy). Held from 8 - 11 August 2024, Festival LIKE 2 is part of preparation for the 29th COP of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan, which will be held in November 2024.

The LIKE 2 Festival is expected to be a forum to introduce various efforts that have been made by various parties in Indonesia in preserving the environment, while at the same time inspiring people to be more concerned and active in maintaining environmental sustainability.

"If we can't maintain the environment, the environment is not maintained, the most influential thing will be on the quality of our lives, whether in the form of illness, in the form of drought, then food pressure, I think that should be our common concern," said the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, in a press statement on the Cabinet Secretariat website when submitting the Social Forestry Decree (SK) and Land Obyek Reforma Agrarian (TORA), as well as an Environmental Fund Service Certificate to community representatives at the LIKE 2 Festival.

On the same occasion, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Minister of Environment and Forestry, said that apart from (SK) the Social Forest and TORA, support will also be given to the community in the work of environmental actions in the form of community service fund certificates from BPDLH (Environmental Fund Management Agency), not the APBN, but funds derived from philanthropy, from bilateral climate cooperation such as Norway, Germany, and also multilateral such as the GCF, GEF, including the Bezos Earth Fund.

" FUNDS like this are for climate action, for Folu Net Sink, for environmental action, circular economy, and others that continue to grow and will continue," said Minister Siti.

BPDLH is the direction of the President of Indonesia to support community work for the environment that needs to be facilitated. A number of beneficiaries include Kalpataru recipients, Adiwiyata schools, universities, waste bank groups, driving circular economic ecosystems such as the Empowerment Cooperative. Community funds for the environment from BPDLH are projected at a scale of 2,000-50,000 US dollars.

In 2010, AQUA and Danone Ecosystem pushed for the growth of the plastic waste recycling social business model by presenting a recycling business unit or known as the recycling business unit (RIBU). To support the program, there are six RBUs spread across Bali, Lombok, Bandung and South Tangerang, all of which are tasked with collecting or buying PET plastic bottle waste from scavengers, cleaning, washing and consulting, then selling them as raw materials for new bottles to new bottle manufacturing factories that are AQUA business partners.

Along the way, to ensure the sustainability of the RBU while ensuring that social values continue to be maintained, the Empowerment Cooperative was formed in 2013. Moving in the production of plastic and savings and loan recycling, this cooperative is also an institution that oversees the recycling business unit.

Since being under the auspices of the Reservoir Cooperative, the recycling business unit has continued to grow, starting with only one business unit in South Tangerang, so far it has owned four satellite recycling business units in Gunung Sindur, Bogor, Sukabumi, Bekasi, and Labuan Bajo.

In 2023, all business units managed to collect more than 2 thousand tons of PET bottled waste. Furthermore, the recycling business unit also continues to grow by starting to buy and sell packaging, cardboard, paper, aluminum, iron, cans, plastic pp and glasses. With a growing business network, the Empowered Scavengers Cooperative has a turnover of up to 20 billion per year in 2023.

Currently, the Empowerment Scavengers Cooperative has 91 members, all of whom are RBU employees who receive salaries and BPJS employees. In addition, all employees who are also members of the cooperative also get other benefits such as SHU (the rest of the business results), savings and basic food assistance every Eid Al-Fitr, including getting vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Karyanto Wibowo, Sustainable Development Director of Danone Indonesia, said that his party was also proud of the trust given by the Indonesian Government to the Empowerment Cooperative.

"Initially, the Empowerment Scavengers Cooperative was AQUA's fostered partner in efforts to manage plastic waste. Currently, the cooperation between the Empowerment Cooperatives and AQUA is still continuing. The Empowered Scavengers Cooperative supplied a recycle PET (RPET) to be used as a new bottle packaging for AQUA. In AQUA, we not only focus on providing healthy and quality drinking water, but also on how our products can be part of the solution to plastic waste problems. Through the #BijakBerplastic initiative, we are committed to encouraging changes that have a positive impact on the environment and are sustainable," said Karyanto.