Raising standards to global level by applying Korea's IT expertise to cope with environmental challenges By taking advantage of IT, Korea's Ministry of Environment (http:// www.me.go.kr), is constructing the highest quality environment administration service system with a view to administration innovation of the Ministry. Thanks to these efforts, the Ministry was assessed to be a 'leading group,' the highest rank in terms of innovation, by the government innovation assessment in 2005. In the case of the Ministry of Environment, high-level innovation is being attained in a balanced way, but it is also necessary to boost the core service's quality, stressed the vice minister Lee Kyoo-yong. First off as for innovation utilizing IT, the Ministry of Environment has introduced a remote connection 24-hour electronic settlement system since March 2004 and improved its mobile system with which electronic settlement is possible on the move since March last year. The vice Minister who is interested in IT applications for the ministry's affairs, explained that Internet live broadcasting as well as screen conference system are being constructed/operated, besides an extensive reorganization to a customer participationmodel system in the event of PCRM for the sake of bi-directional communication activation with policy customers. In regard to its e-Integration performance management system as well, the Ministry of Environment is preparing a 'Strategy-Focused Organization' basis by constructing an on-line e-Integration performance management system, which reflects strategies as well as performance goals. Customer satisfaction boost with IT grafting Concerning the ministry's priority innovation tasks, Lee first of all named exporting KTMS (Korea Tele-Metering System: domestic air pollution remote automatic observation system) abroad by brand awareness. From a mid- and longterm perspective, the Ministry of Environment is planning to expand the scope of remote automation metering of pollutants such as noise, and also enlarge/develop to a location pursuit system regarding hazardous articles and scrapped materials by grafting new technologies like RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), he said. The ministry's plan is to construct a nationwide online remote automatic observation system by grafting KTMS technology on IT technology in the light of the fact that Korea secures technological potential energy such as metering equipment's localization particularly on the basis of cutting-edge IT industry base. By constructing an environment management system that maximizes customers' convenience by means of active grafting between IT and environment policy, vice minister Lee has committed himself to creating innovation performances that the nation can actually feel the benefits of. In conjunction with informatization such as information infrastructure construction too, the Ministry of Environment is introducing an environmental impact assessment portal site with a view to boosting the environment influence assessment system's epoch-making innovation and customer satisfaction. The vice minister added that the Ministry is constructing information infrastructure to share environmental impact assessment-related information with development business providers, environment institutions, and other persons concerned. The Ministry of Environment is also carrying out tasks which continuously provide all sorts of environmental information on the basis of ITA (Informatization Technology Architecture) results enacted on Dec. 30, 2005 to prepare a national environment all-round information portal service construction base. Environment policy paradigm's fundamental conversion The vice minister stressed that the current Participatory Government is fundamentally transforming its environment policy paradigm, with priority given to national participation and cooperation. Accordingly, the Participatory Government's environment management paradigm's change is conspicuous in terms of environment/economy/society's wellbalanced development, the national participation- model on New Governance and preferential consideration of environmental conflict prevention as well as its solution in comparison with previous administrations. As a special measure, vice minister Lee explained that the Ministry of Environment has established/announced the 'Environment Health 10-Year Innovation Plan' in February this year, regarding this year as the first year of environmental health which changes the government's environment policy's paradigm from pollutant management-centered to national health protection from this year. In connection with this conversion, he pledged that the Ministry would promote advanced environment policies in earnest by means of joint participation and collaboration between other relevant organizations. What is worth noticing is that the new policies are being implemented for the purpose of constructing a sustainable resource circulation-model society. The Ministry of Environment is also carrying out the 'Eco- STAR project,' which supports intensively large-sized strategy technology whose marketability and success potential are high according to the principle of selection and concentration. This is to promote environment technology development as well as environment industry nurturing in earnest in the interests of coexistence of the environment and the economy and to lay the foundation for overseas inroads in the environmental field, according to Lee. Preferential support for fragile environment services Lee went on to explain that for the sake of balanced national development, the Ministry will beef up support for fragile environmental services and vulnerable sectors of society even more. Also, the Ministry of Environment will be in the vanguard of sustainable development in a global dimension through active and autonomous international environment cooperation as a hub country in Northeast Asia, he said. In relation to environment policy performance assessment, he named the improvement of water quality of four major rivers, sewage disposal facilities, the improvement of air quality in the metropolitan areas, recycling improvement, promoting environmentally-friendly consumption, as well as promoting a positive image of the environment industry. In particular, the domestic environment industry's scale was enlarged from 581.9 billion won (around $612 million) in 2003 to 1 trillion won (around $1.03 billion) in 2005, enlarging abroad export with priority given to developing countries. As weak points, the vice minister pointed out that measures to cope with new environmental problems are still insufficient, the level of environment quality the nation feels is still very low, social conflicts continue when establishing development plans, environment-friendly production- consumption is still inadequate, and investment in environmental services is lacking. In consideration of such challenges that lie ahead, he pledged that the ministry would focus its policy direction in the coming months on coping proactively with new environmental problems such as environmental diseases, preventing social conflict in connection with development projects, tangible improvement of environment's improvement the nation can feel including water and air, sustainable economy/society system construction, and well-balanced development society construction with preferential support about environment service fragile areas.