The Government needs to have a unified blueprint to tackle environmental challenges; the blueprint should incorporate the principles of economics, which are about how to deal with scarce resources
In today’s world the threat perception to environment is serious and organisations as well as Governments are taking evasive measures to reduce and mitigate the impact of these threats. But many of these measures and initiatives fall flat; only a handful succeed. The reasons for failure vary according to the specific conditions.
For instance, there may be many examples of green initiatives in manufacturing companies that have paid off, but there are equal examples, if not more, where these initiatives have miserably failed. Ford’s factory in Michigan, US, is an apt example which was renovated at a cost of $2 billion as a green initiative to make the factory environment-friendly. The facility boasted of environmentally sound design comprising rainwater harvesting, solar energy panels, fuel cells and constructed wetlands. But yet from an overall environmental perspective Ford Motor Corporation still has a long way to go. This is due to the contribution to climate change and air pollution from the vehicles manufactured at this facility. This proves that in order to create a positive impact on environment especially in the manufacturing sector, companies need to take into account larger issues along the value chain that might have the potential to adversely affect the environment.
Closer home, in 2009, the waste segregation initiative was launched in Delhi amid much fanfare but just few years later today one can see that the initiative has not taken off. The green and blue bins meant to segregate waste now are used in a common manner and worse still in many places across the city one can see the bins broken off too. If the Government takes a step and not deliver, then it sets an uninspiring precedence and speaks of total lack of resolve and ownership in the Government, especially the officials and departments concerned. Similarly, the Government, grappling with the issue of plastic waste, has enforced the Environment Protection Act (1986) last year, imposing a blanket ban on all kinds of plastic bags. Though this has brought relief to a beleaguered city reeling under plastic refuse, it still has not yielded the ideal outcome.
The gap between legislation and comprehensive execution in letter and spirit becomes all the more evident in instances such as these. This disconcerting state of affairs can be remedied by ensuring that the Government departments are fully equipped both knowledge and manpower-wise to execute the plan. In addition, NGOs and media can be effectively partnered to spread awareness among the people.
The absence of a synchronised participation by multiple stakeholders can spell failure even to the best-conceived green initiative. On a larger canvas, India’s ambition for a superlative growth rate needs to match with its green initiatives, which currently is not the case. The lack of a coordinated formulation of green policies by the Government that not only seek to compensate earlier damage to the environment but also address future concerns are totally absent and this is causing an expensive growth for the country.
The last decade saw a rapid growth but this came at a huge environmental cost, which ranged from 3.5 to 7.5 per cent of the total economic output of the country. Much of this cost is attributable to the damage caused by air pollution, water contamination, solid wastes and deforestation. This harmful trend of gaining growth at such unacceptable price needs to be addressed.
To begin with, the Government needs to have a unified blueprint to tackle environmental challenges; the blueprint should incorporate the principles of economics, which are about how to deal with scarce resources. The resultant policies and initiatives emanating from such blueprint will have the desired effect on environment with minimum adverse economic impact. In addition environmental experts can be roped in to assist policy makers to give shape and relevance to the policies. If this is achieved, India can have effective measures for vexing problems such as assisting farmers who find it difficult to match changing trend of monsoons with the current agricultural crop calendar or the country can evolve an initiative to preserve and enrich its 8,000 km long coastline. The possibilities are endless.
Creating environmental initiatives that deliver the promised environmental gains, as well as stay economical, is a challenge. Achieving that in a multiple stakeholder scenario that is as complex as India is even more so. The ball has to be set rolling by the Government and it can empower the people and institutions to take interest and realise the common goal.