There has been a growing concern about the carbon intensity in our developmental path, leading to degradation of local, regional and the global environment. The basis of sustainability for a developing country like India lies in adopting an efficient, equitable and environmentally sound growth pattern. Hence, the priorities of developing economies still revolve around the basic issues of poverty, population and livelihood.

Current efforts towards global environmental protection are mainly being concentrated around a small number of large-scale developmental projects by virtue of their visibility and easy man euverability. But, there are a large number of unexplored contributors that have been left un-noticed in-spite of their high resource intensity, inefficiency and high level of pollution loads per unit of production. These are mainly the small scale industrial production systems, the ever expanding urban growth centers and the attached commercial service centers which are largely left un-addressed and are beginning to pose more or less similar concerns to those of large operations.

In this phase of economic transition, India cannot afford to embrace a developmental path which is detrimental to its long-term sustainability. Some of the emerging tools / techniques for voluntary environmental management such as Environmental Management Systems as per ISO 14001 or the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can promise a large scale global environmental improvement if adopted in their true spirit especially for the above mentioned growth sectors.

Some of the most popular apprehensions associated with such tools are expressed in terms of ‘low hanging fruits’ or through the North-South differences on the issue of ‘domestic action’ or the imposition of the Non-Trade Tariff Barriers in terms of International Standards etc. Though such a precautionary approach is essential, one can still find that these mechanisms can offer some innovative approaches in dealing with the long standing issue of pollution containment from informal sectors such as the ones mentioned above.

Already apprehensions are being expressed on the effectiveness of the CDM in its present form to bring out the desired change. Flexible, innovative and win-win approaches should form the key components in project development to meet the country specific environmental and developmental priorities. An illustration of the experiences of Development Alternatives (DA) in the above mentioned 3 sectors might provide some useful insights in further exploring new opportunities.

Energy and Environment (E2) advantage in Small Scale Industry
Small Scale Industries (SSIs) in India are considered to be the backbone of the economy providing employment to millions of people. More than 3 million such labor-intensive industries are operating mostly in an unorganized way. Chemical processing, metal finishing, textile dyeing, food processing and brick manufacturing, are some of the energy intensive and highly polluting sub-sectors within SSIs. Due to their de-centralized nature, it is becoming next to impossible to contain pollution through a regulatory regime. However, the SSI sector offers an opportunity for promoting voluntary improvements in the area of energy and environmental performance.

Climate Change Mitigation Potential in Brick Sector

The construction sector is currently contributing 22% of the total CO2 emissions in the country, which is expected to grow further in the coming years. In the building materials industry, cement, brick, steel and lime manufacturing processes are the most energy consuming, - contributing 80% of the total CO2 emissions from the construction industry. The building materials industry, as a major user of natural resources and manpower, is putting pressure on non-renewable energy resources. It is projected that by the year 2020, there will be a three-fold increase in the demand for the building materials thereby releasing 285 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

In the year 1994, DA with the help of Swiss Development Co-operation (SDC) initiated a search for cleaner and energy efficient technology for brick production. It resulted in the introduction of the Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) from China, a promising technology for decentralised production of burnt bricks. In the last few years the original VSBK design as introduced by Chinese experts has been optimised to integrate cost effectiveness, energy efficiency and economy of operation besides improving the environmental performance, health and safety aspects.

The energy saving potential of VSBK is more than double when compared to an improved, best practice following traditional Bull’s Trench Kiln (BTK) and more than three times in comparison to a traditional clamp technology. It has been estimated that VSBK has a reduced emission of 120 tonnes of CO2 per million bricks produced. The pay back period is estimated to be less than 3 years. The climate change mitigation potential and its cost effectiveness are provided in the following table.

During this technology adaptation and testing phase, DA and various other partners involved in this study have adequately tested and demonstrated the techno-economic, energy and environmental performance of VSBK, besides the market feasibility and product acceptability. Now VSBK is all set to leap-frog, if the policy and financiers provide the required push.

VSBK can offer a good case for climate change partnership projects leading to win-win situations. The investor could be a national or international player (eg: south-south or north-south co-operation) with an aim to promote voluntary environmental initiatives to minimize the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Recommendations
Of all the existing technology transfer mechanisms for climate change mitigation, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) offers the right forum for VSBK promotion in India. DA has done a dummy exercise to develop VSBK as a proxy CDM project. Though a single VSBK meets all the criteria relating to indicators of sustainability, cost effectiveness, and additionality, it may not be financially viable as a CDM project, since the transaction costs may outweigh the true emission reduction costs.

Some basic issues such as whether project cost account for land and building, what periodicity should be followed for monitoring the reduction of emissions or verification of baselines, etc., will have to be addressed on a case to case basis. Also, there could be several other options and not just one method of transaction.

If the climate change mitigation potential of small-scale industries need to be harnessed in an economical way through CDM mechanism, it has to be done on sectoral and regional levels, involving a cluster of units. However, it would require a special institutional and legal system to minimise the monitoring and transaction costs and also brings in maximum transparency. Part of the CDM transaction costs could be supplemented through developmental funding if necessary. Similarly, national level emissions trading system could also be thought about to facilitate large-scale dissemination of climate friendly technologies such as VSBK.

Climate Change mitigation in informal sectors

By the year 2020, it is estimated that more than half the world’s population would be living in urban areas. Simultaneously, urban service sectors including resource intensive hospitality sectors are growing at a faster pace. So far, all our climate protection efforts are centered around making the industries more responsible. Our climate protection mission will not be complete if we do not address the consumption patterns in urban areas and other allied service centres. Growing energy needs and vehicular pollution are a cause of immediate concern in terms of global climate change due to informal sectors.

The Clean Technology Initiative (CTI) programme sponsored by USAID and ICICI and implemented by Tetratech and Development Alternatives is addressing similar concerns. This part of the CTI project aims at promoting voluntary environmental initiatives through ISO 14001 and benchmarking among hospitality industry and industrial townships. The main scope of the ISO 14001 is to look at not only the local level impacts, but also at the global climate issues. Through the initial environmental reviews, participating hotels and townships are setting their short term and long-term objectives to mitigate the environmental impacts resulting from their activities.

The beauty of this programme is that environmental consciousness is percolating down to individuals. Schools, hospitals and the hospitality sectors are taking active responsibility for local and global environmental protection efforts. Industrial townships such as BHEL (Haridwar, UP), Godrej & Boyce (Vikhroli, Mumbai), TATA Chemicals (Mithapur, Gujarat), IFFCO (Kalol, Gujarat) and hotels such as The Orchid hotel (Mumbai), Best Western (Mathura, UP), Hyatt Regency (Delhi), Mughal Sheraton (Agra, UP) have already taken up initiatives to design and implement Environmental Management Systems as per ISO 14001. A major part of the improvement activities would address reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Results of this programme will be reported in due course.

We need to explore more such opportunities and local initiatives to protect our planet. Some innovative strategies need to be adopted to derive a multiplier effect from these simple examples. q