An emerging NGO perspective
Integrated Environmental Efficiency


Production is fundamentally related to pollution. Every production process generates "wastes". Thus, even human breathing generates carbon dioxide, which "pollutes" the air. There is, therefore, no pollution-free technology. The critical question is whether the wastes generated fall into nature’s rhythm so that other processes can transform the wastes into useful products. "Useful", that is, from the point of view of human beings. Municipal sewage, for instance, is not "waste" for bacteria; it is the very stuff of life upon which the bacteria feed, and their "wastes" become productive manure for humans for humans to grow vegetables with. If these natural processes are disrupted, or their capacity exceeded by the products we generate, particularly in industrial production, then nature is degraded.

This linkage between production, wastes and natural processes is the key to the preservation of nature and, therefore, of life. Environmental groups have begun to understand these linkages. It is this growing understanding that forms an NGO perspective on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). As the understanding grows, so does the perspective. It is a path on which Indian industry has but recently placed its feet.

As extensive public pressure mounted, various milestones have marked the shift in industrial behaviour and highlighted their growing environmental awareness. Effluent treatment plants (ETPs) were set up and progressed from end-of-the-pipe control measures to treat effluents and realise economics of recovery, to less expensive and more efficient process changes for pollution control. (The cost of running an ETP is a drain on a company’s profit, but it merely effect a phase-transfer in the pollutant. Thus, what was earlier being disposed off as a liquid into the river was now being converted into solid sludge. The problem of disposing off the sludge still remained.)

Eventually, process changes are instituted and somewhat "cleaner" technologies are brought in to remove the major pollutants at the source itself, thereby resulting in more efficient and cheaper (in the long run) pollution control measures.

So far we have traced the environmental path up to the point reached by the advanced sections of Indian industry. However, from an NGO perspective, two more (and higher) levels of integration may be indicated. The first level has its genesis in the "Responsible Care" or "Cradle to Grave" policy enunciated by a section of US, Canadian, and European industry. While industry has been advancing this policy keeping in mind its public image, the question of social responsibility looms large behind it. Hence, governments, as the democratic representatives of societies, may have to interpret "responsible care" policy not only in terms of production processes, but by questioning whether specific products are necessary to society.

This is presently reflected in the banning of hazardous drugs and unsafe pesticides. For instance, caustic soda has a major use in the paper industry. NGOs are beginning to ask uncomfortable questions about the environmental impact of "fine writing paper". If manufacture of such paper were to be limited to that quantity which is socially necessary, then the requirement of caustic soda would also reduce. Both these inter-related reductions would not only diminish the amount of direct pollutants from both industries, but would also beneficially affect the extensive degradation of bamboo forests by the paper industry.

Once the logic of higher and higher levels of integration is accepted at a policy level, the environmental path inescapably leads to yet another issue. This is the question of integrated efficiency. So far, all enterprise has operated on the principle of economic efficiency. In other words, a certain sum of capital invested is expected to generate more money than what has been invested. This notion of efficiency is expressed variously as "profitability" or in terms of "benefit-cost ratios". However, as environmental impact assessments begin to incorporate larger and larger chunk of the environment in a holistic manner, we begin to come ever closer to the dynamics of the physical world of nature, of the environment itself. Natural laws postulate that energy efficiency will always be less than one in any system. In other words, the perpetual machine is not possible. It is certainly not valid thermodynamical or socially, and – if all inputs are appropriately priced – not even economically. Hence, economic efficiency may have to be balanced by energy efficiency in integrated EIA studies within certain temporal and spatial limits reflecting the extent to which the environment is considered for the practical process of producing necessary goods. Consequently, form a notion of "maximising profitability, we may have to make a major paradigmatic shift to a notion of "minimising losses".

As mentioned earlier, leaders of Indian industry have just begun to embark on this as yet uncharted (for them) environmental course. Thus, an emerging NGO perspective on EIA may help industrial managers to see the scope of things to come. A paradigmatic shift does not mean the end of the world. After all, it should be remembered that it was precisely such a shift that gave birth to modern science and industry about 300 years ago. The coming change in paradigms will, hopefully, give rise to yet another notable attempt by human beings to understand and live humanely with their environment.

by A.K. Roy
(WWF-India)

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