As minister, Makarim developed the Good Environmental Governance (GEG) program, which rates the environmental performance of cities and local environmental agencies. Makarim has spent most of his professional life in the environmental field; however, he was one of eleven members of the Indonesian Commission for Business Supervision (KPPU) that was appointed by the President in June 2000.
From 1990 to 1999, he was the Deputy of Pollution Control for the Indonesian Environmental Protection Agency (Bapedal). In 1995, Makarim created and launched the Program for Pollution Control, Evaluation and Rating (PROPER) to collect and disseminate information about the environmental performance of leading private-sector polluters.
Makarim worked for Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) as a policy analyst from 1986 to 1989. At the same time, he also taught a graduate level economics course at the University of Indonesia (UI) in 1986 to 1989. He was the Assistant Minister of Environment from 1989 to 1992 in the office of the Ministry of the Environment.
Awards
He won an award from the United States Association of Environmental Engineers in 1993. He won the award for his invention and his successful implementation of the Clean River Program (Prokasih). To this date, the program was adopted in many countries[citation needed].