OREANDA-NEWS. An expert of the School of Political Analysis at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Yevgeniy Sheleshko believes that environmental investments will soon become as important as tax payments.

Domestic business is getting more concerned with the environment and environmental footprint of their day-to-day operations. This is an opinion of Yevgeniy Sheleshko, an environmental expert of the School of Political Analysis at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

“Now big national businesses, first of all, heavy industry companies, take into account their environmental footprint. It is necessary to invest seriously in modernisation to prevent industrial disasters caused by worn-out assets and Ukraine needs tens of billions of dollars for that. At the same time, it is really important to invest in environmental projects to ensure environmental safety in the regions where companies operate,” noted the expert.

Mr Sheleshko believes that funds put into environmental programmes shall be viewed as investments rather than charity.

“The head of US Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy stated recently that USD 1 spent within the Federal Clean Air Act brings USD 30 of benefit. These funds work to the benefit of the society and contribute to business development as well. Considering the increased attention of global governments to environmental safety issues we can expect that investments in environmental programmes will soon become as important for business as tax payments,” noted the expert.

We remind that today SCM Group has announced its corporate social responsibility results for January-June 2013, consolidated in course of preparations of the Group's non-financial report.

“According to the latest SCM report, the Group paid UAH 14.5bn in taxes and USD 8.7bn in payroll and invested UAH 2.39bn in environmental programmes and H&S. SCM focuses not only on heavy industry (which is in urgent need for investments) but also develops other business directions with lower man-induced impact and annually increases environmental investments,” stated the expert.