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GENERATION 21x SPEAK: ECOLOGY No Artificial Flavours Added By A. Ganguly
What are the implications of these developments at the start of a New Millennium? Circa 2000, widespread consumerism competes with environmental concern. Yet, the consumer today is far more aware of various events affecting his life, ranging from vehicular pollution to bio-accumulated synthetic residues in food. How should industry cope with this dichotomy? Industry, at the outset, will need to redefine the traditional concepts of efficiency, quality, ethics, and social responsibility so as to align them with the emergent situation. Efficiency has long been interpreted as a process of optimising input-output ratios. And the notions of ethics and social responsibility, as applied to business, have meant conformance with society-defined welfare and ethical principles. In the new scenario-a post-environmentalist one, if we may call it so-companies will need to revisit these concepts. Efficiency is no more an issue of optimising ratios, but of optimising an intricate network of processes for the long-term sustenance of performance standards. The recovery of chemicals from effluent streams and their infusion back into the production process, for instance, needs a networked approach rather than a linear one. The Management Information Systems (MIS), regarded as an integral part of the information-feedback loop, ensures organisational efficiency through doses of information. There is need for an Environmental Information System (EIS), which will serve the same function but from a different perspective. This concerns the resource-efficiency of the production system, including all its linkages. An expanded vision of quality follows from this. This new quality is a basic component of the production-environment interface. An organisation ensures quality by responding to the demands of its EIS and inculcating a matching concern across the organisational hierarchy. The issue of ethics and social responsibility is somewhat more complex. Typically, environmental considerations are external to an organisation's objective function as long as public opinion on its environmental performance is not unfavourable. There is also increasing international pressure to comply with standards like iso-14000, and major investment decisions are, often, linked to parameters such as the quantifiable environmental impact. While all these initiatives will, no doubt, be beneficial to the individual and the environment, the organisation may find it difficult to build such complex linkages into its internal policies. Doing this calls for achieving resource-efficiency through linkages. For instance, a thermal power plant could come under attack for causing environmental problems due to release of fly ash. On the other hand, there is technology available for using fly ash to make bricks, which could avoid the environmental impact that traditional clay-brick-making results in-the creation of massive ground depressions resulting in significant losses in soil fertility. What is required is a system which can establish such linkages. This is a problem that environmental management will have to address in the 2000s. The fact that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a rather inappropriate indicator of development now characterises mainstream economic thought. The doubling of India's GDP between 1975 and 1995 has come at the cost of a four-fold increase in industrial pollution, and an eight-fold increase in vehicular pollution. Moreover, the fact that the trickle-down has not brought about better living for a large part of our population shows the need for more targeted investments in the social sector. Consider this: power for the cities or the industries that feed them can come at the cost of massive displacement as the Sardar Sarovar Project shows. Thus, there is need for a major paradigm shift both at the micro (organisation) level and at the macro (government, industrial federation) levels. First, a fresh look needs to be taken at the appropriateness of technology. E.F. Schumacher, in his classic work, Small Is Beautiful, has built a case for intermediate technology that is superior to primitive technology, but cheaper and freer than the super-technology of today. This matches the efficiency of the dominant market-favoured super variety one, but is more equitable and harmonises with the environment. Secondly, there should be a search for more self-sufficient systems, drawing less of non-renewable resources, and depending more on locally-available ones. Govinda Marate, a resident of Mala village in Karnataka, runs a sweet-making unit and meets all his energy needs from bio-gas. A replication of such initiatives can act as a bulwark against energy-intensive large-scale production. Third, the global trend of using cleaner technologies could favour late-developing India. crisil and Hagler Bailey estimate that Clean Development Mechanisms can bring in upto $39 billion of investment to India in the renewables and transport sector. The government and the private sector should work towards tapping this potential and combining it with innovative management practices like subsidising efficient energy use. Only then will quality as perceived by the consumer become compatible with quality as defined from an environmental perspective. This will result in a deeper notion of quality: one which is reflected in better capabilities for the entire population and a greater concern for the planet's health. And this could, eventually, see the emergence of environmental management practices for the greater common good. Anirban Ganguly is a Project
Assistant at the Centre for Ecological Science, |
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The
last decades of the century witnessed an upsurge in the concern for the environment. A
slew of global agreements marked this period: The Convention On Biological Diversity, The
un Framework Convention On Climate Change, and The Montreal Protocol. The establishment of
the Global Environmental Facility with a corpus of $2.75 billion in 1998 was a response to
the growing realisation that a major global transfer of resources was required for lasting
environmental benefit. 