Environmental protection is fundamentally based on a precautionary principle with a huge moral underpinning to it. While the rise in environmental consciousness over the past seven years has far outstripped the corresponding rise in spending on a clean environment (0.2 per cent of GDP in `90 to 0.6 per cent of GDP in `97) there is still a lot left to be done in this vital area by corporate India.

It would not be inappropriate to state that legislation governing environmental protection is inherently defective and dysfunctional. The Water Pollution Act and the Air Pollution Act, virtually carbon copies of each other, have a crucial provision, section 40(I), which if it was not tragic would be comical. It says that if a head of a firm or a government department is able to prove that an act of pollution has occurred either without his knowledge or despite his best efforts to prevent it, it immediately absolves him of all liability whatsoever! Even when summons manage to get delivered to polluting industries, even after they fail to pay off lower level officials to hush it up, even after a case actually gets started and reaches the portals of a court, this loophole not only allows polluting industries to walk free, but in fact encourages organised collusion between industry and Pollution Control Board officials. Until and unless there is an immediate reform in this clause, environmental regulation shall remain a pipe-dream.

However, there is a new fetish which appears to have gripped corporate India - obtaining an ISO 14000 certification considered the last word in good environment, it starts where other environmental laws end. Several giants, both in public and private sectors have either obtained the certification or are in the process of doing so. These include Indian Oil, Sesa Goa, NALCO, Indal, Du Pont, ITC and Modi Xerox to name just a few. Not only does it clean the environment, the ISO 14000 certification has also a credible signalling effect to the rest of the world that the company's products match the best international standards.

For instance IOC is recovering sulphur from fuel gas to reduce its content in emissions and has fitted the Mathura refinery with on-line sulphur dioxide monitors for instant detection and correction of possible deviations. The National Environmental Engineering Institution (NEERI) has just commenced a pioneering experiment towards mass bio-desulphurisation at the refinery, which when fully operational, shall be a big step ahead towards a cleaner environment by using low-cost cleaner technology. Similarly, Sesa Goa and Indal are using green technologies in an otherwise potentially polluting industry - mining.

What does the future hold for corporate India as it strives towards a cleaner environment? Big money. The answer would surprise many, for a clean environment is usually associated with high costs, which is not always true. Recent estimates by NEERI and other international management consultancy firms argue that while environment adjusted GDP for India is actually in the negative (India - a GDP growth of minus 5.73 per cent per annum), in the long run, if we are still alive, products from a clean company are bound to be increasingly the only accepted exports from India. This would be on top of the agenda at the next round of WTO negotiations and more importantly, would be a direct fallout of economic slowdown in the West, which would force them to prise open newer markets and restrict imports from developing countries.

The task ahead is indeed formidable for industry. CII estimates vary from anything between Rs 3,000-5,000 crore which industry would have to spend by 2000 on environmental protection, which will compare fairly favourably with what the developed world spends on environmental protection (which is about two to four per cent of GDP). While the market for industrial water and sewerage treatment is the largest and best developed, that for air pollution and solid wastes is still nascent and under-developed.

Sadly, despite several fiscal incentives, the market for cleaner technologies is yet to take off, but it is an area which corporate India would do well to seize right away.

The other area is the efficient use of energy in manufacturing systems and processes. Indian industry is notorious for guzzling energy. Studies reveal that while international pulp and paper plants use about 4.5-5 tonnes of steam and about 2,000 kwh of electricity per tonne of paper produced, the corresponding Indian equivalents are 12-15 tonne of steam and 2,500-3,000 kwh.

The agenda for environmental reforms is simple, uncomplicated and largely unexplored. Corporates would do well to remember that their own scions have to live and breathe in this very environment.

It is our very future which is at peril. Rather than allowing it to be pillaged and lost, a sensible oath would be to steadily climb the uphill path of reform. The future, now being stolen, belongs to them as well.The author belongs to the IAS and the views expressed are personal.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.