In this episode of InConversation Diversey’s President Indian Sub-continent, APAC Himanshu Jain explains why sustainability is important. Jain says, we need to find ways by which we create environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Unless both are together the whole concept will not fly, the world economy is not ready to take further inflation due to the green economy. So, to summarize, we do not have a choice. We need to find more sustainable ways of living.
Jain leads the India Subcontinent region, APAC for Diversey. He started as a leader for the Indian Food & Beverage Hygiene business and took over the Philippines Operation in 2007. When Diversey was acquired by Sealed Air, he led all three divisions of Sealed Air and the post-merger business integration for India.
Sustainability is a must
Says Jain, we all have heard about sustainability as something nice to have, desirable, good for the planet, good for people, so on and so forth for the last 50 years. But today we are at a stage that the crisis has precipitated upon us with a far near term impact than we ever imagined. Europe has started having real summers, you know what it means? It means Europe will have to consider having air conditioners in all its buildings and facilities which at present just do not exist. Imagine a continent of the size of Europe with the population of Europe. How much more carbon emissions will it have? Or greenhouse emissions will it emit? And those greenhouse emissions in turn will increase the global warming further. So, it’s a vicious circle. Sustainability is no longer a desirable thing. Sustainability is a must for industry, for people living on this planet. If we want to survive even this generation, or maybe even the next, we won’t be able to, if we do not figure out how we should manage our resources, how we are using them, how we are replenishing and reducing the overall consumption.
Creating avenues for sustainability
We need to find ways by which we create environmental sustainability as well as the economic sustainability. Unless both are together the whole concept will not fly because the world economy is not ready to take further inflation due to the green economy. And so we do not have a choice, we need to find more sustainable ways of living. We have to, first work towards reducing consumption and then second it by reducing the environmental impact for the same consumption. And I think a combination of both is what is required. To me, sustainability is no longer a choice. It’s a must for survival. Let’s look at it that way.
Queenie Nair, Content Director, ET Edge Insights
