The issue with any buzz is its tendency to get far too generalised with time. Once generalisation takes place, an illusion turns into reality. The issue with pollution and environmental concerns are precisely these. People now are coming round to the view that it’s the industry as a whole that’s responsible for killing the environment.

Is it true? The answer is both yes and no. Industry per se is not the culprit, but it is the wanton destruction of nature as an easy way to raise productivity that inflicts the harm. All the studies that have deeply studied the issue have come up with the same conclusions – compromising on protective measures to cut costs has remained the single most important issue in this regard.

Various agencies of the United Nations have looked into the issue from various aspects to evolve a solution set. What’s now part of common sense has been borne out by all the studies without exception. A careless emission of effluents is a major cause. While there are measures available to cut down the impact to benign, the owners tend to take the shortest cut and leave the nature to sort out the issue on their behalf in the name of cost optimisation.

The studies have repeatedly pointed out practices that at one point of time were seen as tolerable glitches are now, in hindsight, being seen as blunders. For example the practice of littering an open field with toxic chemical containers to save on closed safe warehousing facility. Spilt chemicals inflict enormous damages to the ecology, including us. But for long it has not been taken care of. Persuasion failed and legislative actions were needed to compel the owner to comply with the requirements to protect the environment.

Another culprit is the mining and the mineral exploration firms. Despite the availability of technologies owners tend to cut corners at the cost of environment little realising that the backlash of the harm would spare none.

The working papers of the various global bodies have, therefore, stressed on putting continuous monitoring mechanism in place. In India, we now have Green Rating of industries. Each unit is scored on the basis of a set of predetermined parameters that are sector specific. We also now have in place environment impact analysis of industries. All these assessments are geared toward assessing the compliance and implications in terms of their carbon footprint.

At the onset I said that the answer to the question of environmental impact of industry was not an unequivocal yes. I said so because it’s not the industry but the attitude and the ways industry is managed that inflict the arm. The blame therefore rests at the door of the management and not the industry per se. The answer to improving carbon footprint may therefore lie in creating greater awareness about and commitment to preserving the environment amongst the management.