Climate change: industry’s lukewarm response

The Hindu , Monday, August 11, 2008
Correspondent : V. JAYANTH
From the G-8 summit to the regional gatherings of the industry associations, climate change and its impact as well as regulations on trade and industry are now dominating the discussions. There appears to be a genuine concern on the issues raised, but very little when it comes to follow up action relating to the environment. In other words, industries are trying to comply with the regulations already in place, but not enthusiastic about taking the process forward and plan ning for the future.

After the abolition of the ‘license raj,’ identified sectors of industry have in recent years only gone in for an environmental clearance for projects involving either a certain investment, or handling certain kinds of materials. Hardly a fourth of the businesses measured their current carbon footprint.

In the wake of the mounting international pressure on the government and Indian industry to provide leadership for developing countries in the realm of climate change, leading consultants and global professional service providers KPMG conducted a survey of Indian industries to assess their preparedness for the approaching global phenomenon. The report of the study throws light on India Inc’s appreciation of the issues at stake as also its readiness to respond to the change on hand.

“An overwhelming 83 per cent of the respondents claimed to have a fair understanding of climate change issues. However, just under half of these respondents said they had a clear strategy in place to tackle these issues. Almost 60 per cent responded to climate change issues for the need of complying with regulations. Only 21 per cent of the businesses surveyed measured their current carbon footprint,” says the report.

Global awareness

In contrast, global awareness appears far greater, and most companies in the developed world have measured and announced their baseline carbon footprint, and also their reduction targets over 5 to 10 year period. According to the KPMG report, the picture in India appears ‘rather dismal.’ Just 41 per cent of the respondents indicated having at least some quantified goals for carbon reduction to be achieved by 2010. But a significant 38 per cent have no goals whatsoever. By far the most common response to climate change issues seems to be the adoption of energy efficient appliances — 94 per cent have plans to do that. The other major response may be to go in for environment friendly practices (77 per cent).

Carbon footprint

So what should the companies be doing? The KPMG report says there seems to be a significant gap between good intentions and appropriate actions to back them up. While a number of companies expect to contribute to mitigating their impact on climate change, few seem to be approaching it in a structured, measurable manner.

A detailed carbon impact mitigation plan would typically start with a measurement of the company’s present carbon footprint — as the baseline against which improvements can be evaluated. In the absence of this baseline data any initiative will lack credibility. This carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted over a full life cycle of a process or product. The more progressive industries have gone in to assess the total carbon footprint of their supply chain itself.

Some interesting case studies have also been provided. For instance, ITC has set itself the goal of becoming the first organisation of its size to become carbon positive, water positive, and zero solid waste discharge — it has achieved the first two and may be close to realising the third. Besides going in for energy efficiency, it has adopted renewable energy options, recycling of by-products, waste recovery, and odour abatement systems.

Some of the measures that companies can engage in to tackle climate change issues are: installing energy efficient appliances for lighting, heating, and air conditioning, educating and training employees on environment friendly practices, recycling products, reviewing and updating global supply chain to improve energy efficiency, achieving carbon neutral status, discontinuing high energy/carbon devices or services, reducing air travel and using vehicles with cleaner technologies.

Asked for a comment on the report and the state of preparedness of industry to climate change, a former regional president of the CII says: “We have been discussing these issues seriously, and we are also in touch with the government. When the Centre itself has not spelt out its detailed action plan in terms of emission standards or reductions, industry may not be in a hurry to do that. But we are seriously concerned and there is enough international pressure on us to respond to these challenges. I believe that 2010 will be a turning point.”

 
SOURCE : The Hindu, Monday, 11 August 2008
 


Back to pevious page



The NetworkAbout Us  |  Our Partners  |  Concepts   
Resources :  Databases  |  Publications  |  Media Guide  |  Suggested Links
Happenings :  News  |  Events  |  Opinion Polls  |  Case Studies
Contact :  Guest Book  |  FAQs |  Email Us