By R.Chandrasekhar

ABB's Kaura in front of the Maneja facility

K. K. Kaura had a problem. He was then heading the Maneja plant of ABB Ltd near Vadodara. The company had planted 2,500 trees in its 100-acre premises as part of a green campaign. But the disposal of twigs, dry leaves, and wooden waste proved to be a nightmare. When someone suggested vermiculture, Kaura was amused. There was little connection between making power equipment and breeding earthworms. But as he worked on the idea, Kaura could see that it made eminent business sense.

The investment was to the tune of Rs 10,000 towards buying the first lot of earthworms and finding them a place in the plant's premises. The dry leaves became the fodder for the earthworms; they proliferated rapidly and converted the deadwood into organic manure. Today, the plant generates 5,000 tonnes of organic manure per month; 80 per cent of it is used in the company's own gardening efforts, preempting the need to buy synthetic manure at Rs 5 per kilo-a straight saving. The rest is sold at a notional rate of Rs 1.50 a kg-a straight profit.

As Managing Director of abb India, Kaura is responsible for eight manufacturing sites. ''We strive for a balance in the economic, environmental, and social impact of our business, '' he says.

The company is driven by three objectives that fit into what Kaura terms ''corporate sustainability'': economic, social, and environmental performance. The environmental per formance is driven by the initiative to implement ISO 14001 at all sites.

''Performance along all three dimensions is monitored,'' says Inder K. Sadhu, who currently heads the Vadodara plant. ''What gets measured, gets done,'' he adds. There are 39 operational performance indicators that ABB regularly tracks: the reduction of waste; the identification of environmental hazards; and the optimisation of resources, among others.

The larger environmental initiatives of abb have cascaded down from ABB's headquarters at Sweden. The parent has secured top billings in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The Index, whose ranking criteria include environmental policies, places abb first in its industry group. But it doesn't factor in innovations involving worms.

BAYER INDIA
A Balanced Approach Helps

By R. Chandrasekhar

Going green is sustainable only if it is cost-effective. That is the credo governing the health, safety, and environmental practices at Bayer India. ''A self-balancing approach enhances the rigour and discipline which are necessary in ensuring the success of an environment management programme,'' says John L. Walker, Technical Director, Bayer India, who presides over the company's manufacturing facilities, spread over 42 hectares of land at Thane in Maharashtra. It is towards this end that the company has been leasing out 30 per cent of its incinerator capacity to chemical firms. While a bulk of the capacity is used to meet in-house requirements, the entire costs of the incinerator are recovered through the fee charged to the user firms.

The focus within the company, however, is to reduce pollution at source. ''Pollution control costs money while pollution prevention saves the costs associated with waste treatment and disposal,'' remarks T.Y. Hote, GM (Manufacturing, Safety, Health, Environment & Quality). Each of the 850 employees of Bayer India is obsessed with securing savings in energy costs.

The green practices prevalent at the Thane plant have cascaded from Bayer AG. ''A global system, with centrally driven guidelines has ensured that the same standards are followed everywhere, while providing freedom to subsidiaries to reach out to the needs of the local community,'' says Walker.

Bayer India is an active member of an international chemical industry voluntary initiative called Responsible Care (RC), which is focused on performance through regular monitoring of 20 indices. ''We have a Product Stewardship Code at Bayer India,'' says Hote, ''whose purpose is to make health, safety, and environment an integral part of designing, manufacturing, distributing, using, recycling and disposing of products.'' And there is the Bayer Assessment and Improvement Tool, an audit conducted jointly by DNV, the quality certification agency, and Bayer AG, on a regular basis. Environment is one of the 16 elements assessed in the audit.

The growing credibility of initiatives like RC has enabled government to resist calls for zero risk product bans.

But Walker has a word of advice to the official monitoring agencies. ''While we have reasonable laws in place, their enforcement should be uniform." He is clearly referring to firms which get away with unfair practices.

CLARIANT
Profiting By Saving The Earth

By Abir Pal

Clariant's Rastogi, seen here at the Kolshet facility

It's all about attitude,'' says Prakash R. Rastogi. It's lunch time at Clariant's 93-acre facility at Kolshet, Thane, and Rastogi, the Managing Director of Clariant India, is explaining to this correspondent what makes his company, a 250-crore manufacturer of speciality chemicals, one of India's greenest companies.

The environment, says S. Patil, the company's Vice-President (in-charge of corporate affairs) has always been high on Clariant's agenda. ''Our measures have never been dictated by local legislations. Being part of an international group, we've always tried to strictly adhere to international standards." A.V. Natu, deputy gm of the firm's Safety, Health, and Environment department (SHE), explains: ''Take the case of biological sludge. Many companies dump it as manure. But we take the extra effort of incinerating the sludge, just to be doubly sure.''

Even while helping save the earth, the company seems to be helping itself. The amount of waste it generates has been coming down, reducing its cost of waste-disposal. Seven years back, Clariant India was generating 200 metric tonnes of solid waste every year; this year it has come down to 66. The consumption of water too, has been pruned from 1,600 cubic litres per day to 1,000 cubic litres. Today, Clariant is working towards an ISO 14001 certification. For, that will boost the company's exports which account for 25 per cent of its turnover.

The company is sure that it'll bag the certification because of its environmental management system. At the apex of this structure is ESHA (Environment, Safety, Heath, and Affairs department). Explains Patil: ''World over, there are ESHA personnel in all our plants and the head of ESHA reports to our global chairman. ESHA conducts audits once every two years and the results are benchmarked against international standards.'' Moreover, there are internal audits and statutory environment returns filed with local governmental bodies. That the environment is taken seriously at Clariant becomes apparent when you examine its procedure for introducing new products, which account for 15-16 per cent of its turnover. Before any new product is introduced the R&D department examines it closely to see what potential hazards its disposal may pose, and whether the plant is equipped to deal with the required procedures.

Soil testing every six months, colour coded pipelines, specially-planned containments to prevent spillages and the like-Clariant's robust systems work not only towards preventing accidents, but ensuring that any accident is contained within the plant itself. But Rastogi and his team are hoping that these never need to undergo a real-life trial.

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