The resurgent Bharat's rapid economic expansion is indeed praiseworthy, but it is pitted against the need to reduce carbon footprint
The COVID phase was a test for human nature and psychology, which emerged the winner. The society at large had reached an inflection point from where profits and time spent on work did not matter. All that mattered was the need to survive beyond the unimaginable, and the world did survive. However, things have bounced back to the earlier normal, and mankind is back to its polluting and splurging ways, with a small segment who are actually enlightened enough to see the writing on the wall.
The post-COVID phase also coincided with a resurgent India trying to reclaim its lost glory. Along with strides being made in reaching new horizons in almost all areas, India’s carbon abatement efforts have the potential to influence international outcomes towards climate change. This is much needed, as India’s carbon footprint has increased sevenfold since 1970, and India cannot afford to be sounding morally irresponsible by using the narrative of its per capita carbon emissions to be lower than the world average.
Ancient India is replete with examples to demonstrate how its civilization believed in the interconnectedness of all living beings and the spiritual significance of nature. The humans were responsible for protecting and caring for the environment as part of their spiritual journey. Sustainable practices like nurturing forests, mountains, and rivers, building dikes and reservoirs, treating natural resources as deities, and using nature as a source of sustenance instead of destroying it indiscriminately helped create this interconnectedness.
However, the British rule brought in a sea of mass exploitation exemplified by the infamous episode of Winston Churchill ordering all food resources from India at the cost of the West Bengal famine. Indirectly, India also got accustomed to the western ways of creating sudden wealth by exploiting nature, and hence industrialisation took roots. It needed the country to undergo the ignominious phase of aping the western nation’s growth through deforestation, indiscriminate mining, polluting of rivers and atmosphere and testing the nature’s delicate balance in its quest to remain geopolitically relevant. Ironically, like a sick mother continuing to bless its child who caused her the very agony, India continued to increase its influence across the world, especially so in the last decade
The resurgent Bharat’s rapid economic expansion is indeed praiseworthy, but it is pitted against the need to reduce carbon footprint. If left un-intervened, the rate of economic growth will tilt the fragile carbon balance to a point of no return. The intricate connection between time and money in making India a powerful nation forces the government to make populist decisions which make living easier but will eventually make life less possible on earth.
With climate patterns already showing erratic behavior, 250-300 species getting extinct daily, and large masses of ice near the Arctic Circle and Antarctica permanently melting, the threat to life is real. We are already delayed in our bid to retain carbon neutrality, as much more carbon needs to be deposited back into the Earth than what is being extracted from it. In our bid to outgrow other economies, our approach cannot be the same as the West some decades ago, and we cannot ignore carbon emissions any longer.
By proclaiming that our 17% of the global population has contributed only 4% of the global emissions between 1850 and 2019, there are chances of the government falling into the trap of continuing to justify an increase in carbon emissions. There needs to be a multipronged strategy by the government beyond its stated Long-Term Low Carbon Development Strategy (LT-LCDS) submitted at UNFCCC’s COP 27. This strategy must be strengthened through strong mechanisms to transform the existing framework and achieve the following:
- Reduce stress on all such consumption (edible as well as non-edible products) by replacing products with more abundantly available options or by recycling waste.
- Accelerate innovation and mass production of climate-friendly products and create a marketplace by making them affordable on a larger scale.
- Retain and replicate best practices which have been part of our legacy since ancient times, especially with regard to sustainable human behaviour towards terrestrial life forms.
- Make all climate-negative businesses increasingly difficult to operate by imposing tax burdens on such businesses which are replaceable, thereby using the same taxes to invigorate their fast replacement.
- Develop all villages having a sizeable population using sustainable practices to create a better quality of living, hence reducing the migrant load in the already congested urban landscape.
Corporate Bharat needs to be engaged better:
The most convenient approach for Indian corporates would be to quickly replicate the ESG framework derived from the West, but that could be its undoing for the following reasons:
The initial time taken by organizations to align with the E, S, and G aspects can create a false sense of calm even when the storm is already on the horizon regarding environmental dangers.
The Indian corporate landscape already has a strong governance framework led by the RBI, MCA, The ED, and other appellate bodies. It is safe to assume that the environmental aspects would also be suitably governed without the need to design the governance aspects afresh.
India’s existing social linkages and strong heritage have ensured that the corporates are always in tune with the needs of society. Allowing new norms of inclusion, diversity, and equity to gain prominence without enough available empirical evidence on the existing gaps and the strategy to bridge them could lead to mere lip service being given to the social aspect – which could be a wrong start to the entire effort.
Companies led to believe that conforming to ESG best practices would get in ESG investment would be disappointed to learn that the trillions that humanity needs to fight climate change are not the same trillions that are managed through ESG investing, and the reasons are more political in nature.
There is a huge risk that companies are pushed to somehow do what it takes to conform to the BRSR or any other acceptable form of reporting without even creating a culture around sustainability and employee awareness.
While the government has started off well by laying the policy frameworks and larger goals and also creating the support mechanism for such efforts by the companies, it needs to involve the corporate into these projects directly or indirectly. A case in point is that instead of trying to dissipate resources into rooftop solar panels which have added last-mile efficacy issues, it could be more prudent for companies to contribute towards the solar farms and the national solar grid and in turn draw the same energy for use through a power purchase agreement.
The interweaving of the functioning of the corporate with a large, more meaningful, and outcome-driven government projects can be driven through various models like public-private partnerships, incubation projects for furthering innovation and entrepreneurship, shifting the procurement supply chains from the climate-unfriendly legacy to the greener supply chains, and helping create a marketplace for newer products at scale. Suitable modifications are also needed in the CSR policy framework to make it a part of social initiatives under ESG in a more direct and meaningful manner.
Unless the government creates a meaningful framework for corporate to contribute with the desired focus and speed of action, the efforts will remain mostly scattered and unguided towards creating the required outcomes.
(This article is authored by Navinder Narang, Head- Infra & Facilities, ICICI HFC)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the perspectives of his organisation. These views are solely the author’s and do not represent the opinions of ET Edge, ET Edge Insights, their management, or the members of these organisations.
