Chapter 4: Romania

(continued)

4.6 Information and Training Needs

With regard to needed information, 60 percent of Romania's environmental businesses ranked information on environmental regulations as very important for their business development. Also considered very important by 58 percent of the survey respondents was information on where to find domestic partners. Updates on new environmental technologies and on tenders for projects were both considered very important by 48 percent of respondents. Information on environmental quality standards for industries (ISO 14000 and EMAS) and specific in-county problems were listed as very important by 46 and 43 percent, respectively. Surprisingly, information on project financing, EU environmental regulations, certification requirements and announcement of domestic conferences and trade fairs were considered as very important by only a third of business professionals. The results of the rankings are shown in Table 4.19.

TABLE 4.19: IMPORTANCE OF SELECTED ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
Environmental Information	Rating

Domestic environmental regulations	3.2 (60)
Information on where to find domestic partners	3.1 (58)
New environmental technologies	2.9 (48)
Domestic tenders for projects	2.9 (48)
Domestic environmental problems	2.9 (43)
Environmental quality standards for industries (e.g. ISO 14000, EMAS)	2.8 (46)
Announcements of domestic conferences or trade fairs	2.7 (33)
Sources of project financing	2.6 (34)
EU environmental regulations	2.6 (34)
Certification requirements for environmental professionals	2.5 (35)
Information on where to find international partners	2.5 (30)
Eco-efficient and cleaner production practices	2.4 (24)
Contact information to government agencies	2.3 (28)
International environmental problems	2.2 (17)
International tenders for projects	2.1 (17)
Announcements of international conferences or trade fairs	2.1 (17)
Note: The following scale was used for the rating: 4 Ð very important, 3 Ð important, 2 Ð somewhat important, 1 Ð not important. Numbers in brackets indicate the percentage of respondents who rated the information as very important.

The most preferred delivery option for this information was a printed environmental business directory, mentioned as a very useful delivery product by 55 percent of respondents. Table 4.20 shows that other options considered useful were regular newsletters (very useful to 45 percent of respondents) and a broadcast fax service (very useful to 44 percent).

TABLE 4.20: USEFULNESS OF SELECTED INFORMATION DELIVERY OPTIONS
Delivery option	Rating	% of Respondents Willing to Pay

Environmental Business Directory (book)	3.1 (55)	54
Regular newsletter	2.8 (45)	46
Broadcast fax service	2.8 (44)	32
Environmental Business Directory (CD diskette)	2.7 (43)	56
Information research service providing specific information	2.5 (32)	32
Conferences arranged to address specific environmental problems	2.4 (28)	21
Partnering workshops designed to introduce participants to Western partners, government environmental officials and NGO	2.1 (16)	19
Computer database of information resources available on Internet	2.0 (23)	32
Local business coordinator to arrange meetings, contacts and workshops	1.8 (13)	16
Note: The following scale was used for the rating: 4 - very useful; 3 - useful; 2 - somewhat useful; 1 - not useful. Numbers in brackets indicate the percentage of respondents which find delivery option very useful.

When asked about topics for professional training, 57 percent of the surveyed environmental business professional said they were very interested in training on environmental impact assessment, and about a third showed high interest in environmental economics, environmental auditing, environmental regulations and policy and environmental management. Only one in four respondents was interested in training on financing environmental investments or on project management. Interest in various training topics is presented in Table 4.21.

TABLE 4.21: INTEREST IN PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Type of Training	Rating

Environmental impact assessment	3.0 (57)
Environmental economics	2.7 (39)
Environmental auditing	2.5 (38)
Environmental regulation and policy	2.4 (33)
Environmental management	2.4 (30)
Strategic planning	2.3 (28)
Financing environmental investments	2.3 (28)
Environmental risk assessment	2.3 (24)
Environmental systems and their sustainability	2.3 (29)
Project management	2.2 (25)
Hazardous waste site ranking	2.2 (25)
Integrated solid waste management	2.1 (20)
GIS (Geographic Information Systems)	2.1 (16)
Note: The following scale was used in the rating: 4 - very interested; 3 - interested; 2 - somewhat interested; 1 - not interested. Numbers in brackets indicate the percentage of respondents who are very interested in a particular training.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL MARKET 2 * ROMANIA