Speaker after speaker at the Environment Summit 2000 reiterated that business has to be sustainable. Environment Summit 2000 was a business sustainability conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi earlier this week. Locating the theme in its proper perspective, the summit deliberated upon understanding sustainable development; the relationship of sustainability with economics, environment and society; developing indicators for sustainable development, and policy requirements in India to promote sustainable development. Sustainable development is progress that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs, according to the Brundtland Report. It is based on the three pillars of economics, environment and society and their inter-relationships.

Economic sustainability of a business is investing in socio-value-added services and products, while maintaining profitability. Similarly, environmental sustainability is based on the greening of industry and sustainable consumption, which open up new opportunities for industry.

Mr R P Agrawal, joint secretary in the department of commerce, explained that the desire to preserve and protect the environment has also thrown up some business opportunities in environment friendly products such as jute, organic foods and dyes.

Elaborating further, Mr Arun Viswanathan, associate director with Procter & Gamble, talked about the efforts of his company to think through the potential and opportunities created by sustainable development, which include embarking on a sustainability approach that focusses on the role of their products and services in bringing about an improved quality of life and their ability to deliver those products and services with environmental and social excellence. He gave the examples of his company products like the ones that address micro-nutrient deficiency, and food borne diseases and contamination, etc.

Apart from economic and environmental factors, sustainability has a societal dimension, which is defined as the maintenance or improvement of people's well-being. It refers to the actions of people that affect the sustainability of natural resources as well as the maintenance of an equitable distribution of benefits across generations.

During the two-day conference, speakers also talked about how to take sustainability to a logical conclusion. Ms Sylvia Ostry, distinguished research fellow of the Centre for International Studies, talked about the proliferation of corporate codes like Social Accountability Code SA 8000, which deals mostly with labour issues at the moment, but will expand to include environmental practices as well, and the Global Reporting Initiative, whose ultimate objective is global harmonisation of corporate reporting information covering the environment and social performance.

Going beyond codes, some speakers also dwelt upon policy requirements, calling for coherent environmental and industrial policies focussed on stimulating and disseminating innovation, new mechanisms and measures for enhancing awareness about opportunities for change on both the demand and supply sides, and price signals that eliminate all inappropriate subsidies.

RIET director Philippe Bergeron underlined four criteria to be taken into account when considering policy choices. These include realistic environmental quality goals to be targeted, economic efficiency and cost effectiveness of implementing policies to be kept in mind, the quality and fairness of the distribution of costs to be ensured so that equals are treated equally, and the capacity to implement and enforce the policy in terms of monitoring and enforcement infrastructure being tapped.

Apparently, effective legislation, soft instruments and partnerships, alignment of industrial and environmental policy, and ecological fiscal reforms seem to be the need of the hour. Maybe another conference next year will come up with a more decisive agenda.