Impacts of Compliance

Economic Impacts
To date, South Africa has contributed approximately R15m towards the Multi-lateral Fund - a fund which helps developing countries implement the requirements of the protocol. No further contributions will be made. Industry in South Africa has spent millions of rand in phasing out ODS's and retrofitting equipment with ozone-friendly replacements. In some sectors (for example aerosols), initial expenses in changing to flammable propellants were later recouped , as these propellants were cheaper than the previously used CFC's. In the refrigeration and air conditioning sectors, the ozone-friendly replacements were always more expensive than the products they replaced.

Several attempts have been made to investigate the economic impacts of ozone depletion. It is possible to identify economic impacts on some sectors (such as medical treatment, potential loss of production in fisheries and agriculture; damage to materials and so on). It is much more difficult to quantify an economic value for the impacts on human health or the loss of rare or animal species.

Technical Impacts
There were technical implications in all sectors affected by the phasing out of ODSs. Methods, equipment and raw materials that had become institutionalised were virtually condemned overnight and had to be replaced with new technology and materials - many of which had not yet been developed. The cost of this transition was several hundred million rand. As was expected, there was an early inertia, as many industrialists waited to see whether the Protocol would be taken seriously by others.

Social Impacts
Many environmental NGOs used the existence of the Montreal Protocol as a reason to 'wage war' on ODS containing products (such as aerosols and 'blown-foam' packaging as used in the take-away food industry). Public pressure to reduce the use of these materials was the main driving force which brought about change in South Africa. One of the reasons that these campaigns were successful was that the technology for change was immediately available. More than a decade earlier, similar campaigns in the US had led to the development of the new technology in that country, where CFCs had been removed from these sectors. The other reason was that the replacement products were cheaper than the CFC containing products - and thus the equivalent aerosols and packaging materials could be manufactured at a cheaper unit price.