INDIA'S GREENEST COMPANIES: A BT-TERI PROJECT [Pg.2]

[Contn ]
The green Brigade

Where Black Is The Only Colour

IT's a bare 20 minutes train ride from Calcutta. And, it's ready for a major ecological disaster. The Dankuni Coal Complex of Coal India is a story typical of India: all the right intentions and all the wrong application. It's a dump yard for coal, which is brought from the mines of Raniganj and Jharia, and then subsequently washed and sent to the various users. The trouble is storage. For the past few years, substantial amount of hazardous coal ash has been leaking into local water canal, which empties into the Hoogly river.

The result: people like Abani Charan Das, who once was a hardworking potato farmer, but today is a chronic asthma patient. And he is not alone. There has been a substantial rise in cases of asthma in the region, and local doctor Surhit Datat confirms it. Says Subhas Dutta, an environmental activist: ''Studies have shown that the toxic level in both the local water supply and air is way past the danger level. And there has been a substantial reduction in crop outage in the region.''

Both paddy and potato, two main crops of the region, have been affected. ''The percentage of damaged crop has risen from around four to five per cent of the total output to about 15 per cent in the last three years,'' says Bishnu Charan Naskar, one of the members of the local farmers co-operative. In black Dankuni, people await a ray of green hope.

-Debojyoti Chatterjee

How We Did It

THE GREEN YARDSTICK
Parameter	Weightage (%)
Existence of environmental policy	15
Organisation structure	20
Target setting	10
Training for environment and safety	10
System (internal) for awarding environmental performance	5
Internal environmental reporting systems	8
System of environmental audits	12
Disclosure of information-form and content	5
Voluntary standards/ codes adopted	5
Awards obtained	5
Transparency in responses	5

In March 2000, BT and the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) decided to conduct the first-ever study of environmental practices in corporate India. The survey had two aims. The first was to analyse key trends and dominant environmental practices as observed in Indian companies. The second was to identify the 10 'greenest' companies in terms of the maturity of their environmental systems and practices.

BT-TERI started with the BT-1,000 universe, and went on to exclude companies in sectors such as financial services and information technology because they do not have any significant environmental aspect to their businesses. Public sector undertakings were also excluded. A final list of 450 companies was drawn up, and a three-part questionnaire was mailed to each one of them. Forty-eight companies responded, and one of the responses was considered invalid due to inadequacies.

Responses were sought under three broad headings: a) general information to profile the corporate, b) environmental management policy and practices, and c) information on other environmental aspects, including awards, voluntary standards adopted, and information disclosure. A total of 11 parameters were identified for analysing and evaluating the corporates. The list of parameters did not include a separate one on ISO 14001 (to avoid overlaps with some other parameters), but certifications have been included under the parameter on voluntary standards adopted.

Performance categories with related scoring levels were identified for each of the parameters. Individual scores for each of the parameters were normalised to 1, following which weightages were assigned to arrive at the overall score (See The Green Yardstick). However, a caveat is in order. The analysis is based on data provided as per mailed questionnaires. It is, therefore, subject to biases of the respondents. But BT also sent out its team of reporters to the manufacturing facilities of the top 10 companies for a first-hand feel of their green practices. Therefore, care has been taken to minimise the biases by a) cross-checking claims as far as possible, b) using internal consistency checks, and c) by taking into account the quality of information provided in the other sections of the questionnaire.

The evaluation focuses on environmental management systems, and does not take into account physical environmental performance indicators such as emission levels, energy intensity, and water consumption. That is so because the survey covers corporates from a wide range of sectors, having varying production processes. Comparison across the sectors would, therefore, be possible primarily on management indicators and not physical performance indicators.

The survey was co-ordinated by a TERI team comprising
Vandana Bhatnagar, Harpreet Singh Kandra, & Amit Kapur.

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