If you thought that interest in climate change has tapered off, think again. Companies in India have increasingly become aware of the impact of climate change, environmental and social factors on their businesses and have taken action on critical environmental challenges like green house gas (GHG) emissions, water use and waste management. The efforts on managing GHG emissions and energy use are starting to show results, according to the fourth edition of the FE-EVI Green Business Survey. Overall, GHG intensities have decreased at an annual rate of 3%. The growth rate of absolute emissions has declined from 4.11% last year to 3.7% this year.
The FE-EVI Green Business Survey & Leadership Awards is an initiative launched by The Financial Express, a business daily from The Express Group, and Emergent Ventures, a carbon consultancy, to map the greening of corporate India and to felicitate green leaders. The Green Business Awards aims to recognise businesses and organisations in India which successfully operate with environmentally sustainable practices. The awards will be presented by corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily at a function in the capital on Tuesday.
The fourth edition of the FE-EVI Green Business Survey comes at a very critical juncture, close to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Rio de Janerio mid-June to specifically agree by 2015 to a set of sustainable development goals. At the FE-EVI Green Business Survey & Leadership Awards ceremony, the theme for the panel discussion is ‘Will Rio bring some light at the end of the tunnel?’ Notable participants like Development Alternatives founder Ashok Khosla, Tata BP Solar ex-CEO K Subramanya, among others, are expected to discuss this topic in industry circles.
As per the Green Business Survey, in the realm of natural resources management 42% of the companies are measuring and managing their water use. As a result, water use intensities have gone down by 4.8% annually. Water consumption growth has declined to 1.2% from 2.39% last year. The survey shows that 14% of the boards are focusing their energies on setting up sustainability departments within their organisational structures, whereas 10% are focusing on developing sustainability policies. As much as 11% of the companies are focusing their efforts on improving the sustainability aspects on their supply chain.
Over the last four years, the FE-EVI report has tracked the evolution of corporate India’s sustainability initiatives. It has seen companies become aware of the impact of climate change. Certain sectors like cement have emerged as leaders in reducing their environmental impact. In the process, their operations have become benchmarks for the global cement industry. On the other hand, sectors like power ? especially thermal power ? have not taken environmental footprint mitigation with this seriousness. As a result, many power plants are facing fuel shortages, inefficient operations and friction from local communities who live around their power plants.