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Systems for Sustainable Development
An Environmental Odyssey
The Origins
W hile
the Stockholm Conference in 1972 was a landmark event for the
environmental movement worldwide, it was also remembered for bringing
forth the environment and developmental linkages and the associated
challenges faced especially by the developing countries. The official
Indian statement to the Stockholm Conference points out that ‘For the
people of the world, a better environment means an end to misery, an end
to the burden that they carry because of poverty and not because of
unregulated and reckless economic development. To the majority in these
countries, "environment" is a term that stands for a mud hut providing
inadequate shelter against the elements. It means an unlit, unpaved path
to a community well with unclean water. It means an inadequacy of
clothing, of medical care, of education and, above all, of nutrition.
Economic development for us is, thus, not the cause of environmental
inadequacies but the cure. The aspiration of the majority of the world’s
population is to fulfill their basic minimum needs and not to compete at
the level of ostentation or waste. The basic imperative in these
countries is thus development itself….’ Realising the importance of this
statement, in 1983, Dr Ashok Khosla, a visionary and a sustainable
development practitioner, founded Development Alternatives (DA) with a
vision to address the very same issues (www.devalt.org).
In the larger scheme of agenda
of DA - that of creating sustainable livelihoods in large numbers - the
need for a sound environmental base and clean and healthy environments
and ecosystems became evident to us very early on. Thus was born the
Environment Systems Branch (ESB) in 1983 to address the people-nature
interactions in various spheres of influence, i.e., rural, urban,
industrial, pristine and global environments. ESB has contextualised its
work to combat growing poverty, decline in natural resources and
ecosystems, the philanthropic nature of corporate responsibility, weak
environmental regulatory regimes, growing number of highly polluting
small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a handful of environmental NGOs,
and a large number of other NGOs whose capacity building has been of
utmost relevance.
The Focus
The focus of ESB has been to
innovate, field test, validate, influence and multiply the numerous
strategies, tools and techniques at various levels and scales of
application including household, village, state, national to sub
regional and global levels. The 3R principles - reduce, reuse, recycle -
and ecosystem orientation have been central to our interventions. Over
the years, ESB has been contributing in the areas of community
environmental actions (land, water, air, natural resource, energy,
biodiversity, climate change, and urban waste management), corporate
sustainability management and in promoting sustainable development
policies and strategies. The Geographical Information System (GIS) and
the environmental monitoring facilities provide planning and testing
support to ESB in offering research and development and consultancy
services.
The Need to Contextualise
ESB’s work areas have always
been keeping in mind the changing external environmental priorities. In
the 1990s, having had the privilege to study the country’s
environmental priorities, ESB streamlined its work in rural, urban,
industrial, and global climatic and biodiversity spheres, with 50% focus
on rural environment systems. The need for community based
natural resource management has surfaced more prominently than ever
before. Responding to the need of NGOs, ESB developed the easy to use
water (Jal - TARA) and air quality (Pawan - TARA) monitoring devices and
community based treatment systems. The Jal -TARA Water Filter has proved
itself as a potential tool for ensuring safe water for all by the
communities on their own at an affordable cost. ESB has contributed
extensively in capacity building of communities on the water quality
(including issues concerning fluoride, arsenic, bacterial
contamination), quantity and sustainability management.
ESB had pioneered the
integration of sustainable development strategies in regional planning.
It has defined the social policies and procedures of leading companies.
Benchmarking of energy and environmental performance has been piloted
among the resource intensive industries / operations. In this same
period, ESB initiated a large-scale community environmental action
programme, the CLEAN-India Programme (Community Led Environmental Action
Network Programme) across the country involving our future citizens -
the school children. It has also steered the process of preparing both
the State of Environment (SoE) report and Sustainable Development (SD)
strategy and action plans at South Asia level, besides facilitating a
unique youth version of SoE report - ‘Children of the Monsoon’ at the
South Asia level.
Towards Managing Sustainability
In this decade, the first of
the new millennium, against the backdrop of globalisation and growing
politics of trade, the corporate responsibility debate has transformed
to address the issue of sustainability performance from simply
philanthropic or ad hoc performance improvement measures.
Simultaneously, the multi stakeholder consultation processes have
assumed greater prominence in shaping / negotiating sustainability
practices of corporates. Performance reporting guidelines, public -
private - community partnerships have become trendy practices with
corporates and other stakeholders.
ESB has also successfully
negotiated the first of its kind Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF)
in association with the World Bank to reduce carbon emissions by a
cluster of Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) owners, thus, paving the way
for attracting carbon credits markets for small-scale, decentralised
initiatives through bundling of reduced GHG emissions. The next step is
the introduction of ‘Water for All and Always’ on a pilot basis in 10
villages of Bundelkhand following the Integrated Water Resource
Management (IWRM) principles. ESB has, over the years, successfully
piloted both individual managed and community managed clean and safe
water supply service enterprises models.
Having been recognised as a
focal point of UNEP, ESB has contributed extensively in the World Summit
on Sustainable Development (WSSD) process by preparing a background
paper on the sustainable development strategies and action plans for
South Asia. As a coordinator of Climate Action Network, South Asia (CANSA),
ESB has been playing a significant role in bringing southern voices to
the forefront of climate change adaptation and mitigation debates,
piloting socially inclusive, environmental management measures for
E-waste management, successfully launching an international eco-labelling
and certification standard, the BEST standard for lead battery
manufacturers in partnership with other NGOs nationally and
internationally, exploring public-private partnerships for pro-poor
energy services, and developing easy to use field kits for soil testing
and arsenic in water and a filter for arsenic removal from drinking
water.
This decade is also witness to
the launch of the Sustainability Summit – Asia, as an annual event in
partnership with the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable
Development, primarily to bring the think tank, the practitioners and
the corporates together in addressing the issues of environment and
sustainable development concerns in Asia and to discuss the issues in
the light of global and national implications on sustainable
development.
Achievements and Indicators of
Impact
When I look back to capture the
achievements, the following stood out:
•
A community
environmental action network actively? operating in 78 towns and cities
•
Customised solution
packages available for SMEs, urban local bodies, corporates and
community groups on issue concerning natural resource management, urban
environmental management, environmental and social management systems
for corporates and SMEs
•
Sustainable
development strategies at various levels including local, national,
sub-regional and global
If memberships or awards are
any measure, the ESB staff has been members of many national,
international committees, boards, etc. The illustrative list ranges from
being a Governing Board member IWP (India Water Partnership), former
member, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) chapter on
Education, former member, Local Area Environmental monitoring Committee
(LAEC) for Delhi’s hazardous industries set up by the Supreme Court
Monitoring Committee (SCMC), to being a steering committee member of an
NGO Forum for Responsible Business – India, Member of Gender and Water
Alliance (GWA). A number of awards, rewards and media attention have
been the result of setting up water enterprises through the water for
all programme, empowering communities and school students to monitor
their own environmental quality and take actions at local level through
CLEAN–India Programme and for establishing NGO-business partnerships,
and promoting voluntary standards through partnerships.
ESB employs several indicators
including environmental technologies, practices adopted by communities,
community groups, networks adopting eco-solutions, and school children
who have benefited both directly and indirectly. Hectares of land have
been protected from degradation, an impressive amount of water has been
harvested, carbon footprints of the solutions have been monitored, the
amount of GHG emissions has been mitigated, tonnes of CO2
emissions have been eliminated, and a number of local government bodies
have been greatly influenced. All these measures have been applied
primarily for internal monitoring and evaluation processes to scale up
potential areas of work.
Future Outlook
A recent review of the 25 years
of DA and its relevance in the changing external environment has
reinforced the fact that we stay as relevant as we were 25 years ago,
but the only change that is needed is the pace and scale at which we
influence needs to match the speed at which the external environment is
changing. With growing urbanisation, solutions need to be oriented to
this changing requirement. It has also become very evident that the
future lifestyles and solutions need to rely more on mimicking nature
and moving towards factor 10 efficiency which is only possible through
bio and nano technology application and by promoting large-scale
enviro-preneurship and gradually moving towards carbon-neutral,
ecosystem-oriented eco-solutions to protect the health of both the
public and the planet. And we need to tread this path strategically by
forging partnerships and alliances. q
K.Vijaya Lakshmi
kvijayalakshmi@devalt.org
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