Essays written from thirty years of environmental and sustainability consulting: governance, regulation, institutional failure, and the everyday gap between what a policy promises and what actually gets built, funded or enforced. Many of these pieces are openly sceptical of the industry they come from, questioning fashionable language, weak accountability, and the distance between sustainability as spoken about and sustainability as practised.
I started working with the World Bank (WB) as a short term consultant in 1989. My work as a consultant with Asian Development Bank (ADB) began in 1993. So past nearly 25 years I have been associated with these two Development Financing Institutions (DFIs) as a consultant. In some sense I have been an “insider” but really not part of their “system”. Some envy this…
Read the full post →Dear Colleagues Greetings Sixty Shades of Green is now available on Amazon. Those not residing in India can now order the book on Amazon at US$10. E-Book version on Kindle is also available at US 7$ Click here to access both the versions Between April 25 to 30, the Kindle edition will be available as a Free Download. You may like to avail this promotion…
Read the full post →(Nissan Leaf) The world is moving today into a carbon regime. GHG emission caps/targets, emission trading, carbon taxes, reduction in coal consumption or protection of coal reserves and carbon sequestration have been some of the buzz words that many of us don’t understand (though most pretend to!) Some environmental hardliners believe that a stage will soon come where there will be carbon driven stock markets,…
Read the full post →(A longish post – but could be of help to students and young professionals) Environmental assessment (EA) as a concept came about due to the thinking of “precautionary principle” and “do no harm” to the environment. Box -1 The Precautionary Principle[1] The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to…
Read the full post →Nearly 80% of the world's 1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke is the smoke that fills restaurants, offices or other enclosed spaces…
Read the full post →It is not still too late to reconsider A 35.6-km Coastal Road has been planned along the west coastline of Mumbai to provide a freeway linking south Mumbai with western suburbs. It is expected to reduce traffic congestion in the western suburbs of Mumbai. Today, the Western Express Highway (WEH) carries over 60% of the city’s traffic. The Coastal Road project will take this load…
Read the full post →Preamble Policies on environmental management evolve to address challenges that are critical and issues that still remain to be addressed. Policies are also developed to prepare for the future as a strategy on a proactive basis. In policy development, sharing of international experiences becomes useful. These learnings help in not to repeat the “mistakes” earlier made. Policies successful elsewhere however cannot be transposed on “as…
Read the full post →My Professor Friend called me early morning and asked me come to Delhi by the earliest flight. I asked him why? And he said – This is a call from the Union Minister of Environment & Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC). He is looking for ideas from us on how to improve quality of life of people in Urban India. I told him that…
Read the full post →The other day, I went across to see Member Secretary of the Maharashtra State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) in Mumbai. The Board entrance looked different. The Board now carried a new title ‘The Supreme Pollution Control Board of Maharashtra’. I was surprised to see the change. When I saw the Member Secretary, he said that such a change has been done all across the country.…
Read the full post →You would not believe that the numbers we use or are assigned to – in many ways, control our lives. For instance, when I bought my car last year with a number plate DL 8453 little did I know its implications. According to the recently adopted odd-even number policy, I could now drive in Delhi only on Mondays. Wednesdays and Fridays. For me Tuesdays,…
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