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.
Environmental Management Systems (EMS) play a role in helping organizations to be proactively compliant and continually improve their environmental performance. Many organizations today are certified to ISO 14001 EMS. Although ISO 14001 is voluntary, certifications are sought to meet the investor and market requirements as well as build reputation. Most ask me whether investing in establishing, operating and maintaining ISO 140001 EMS really worth? There…
Read the full post →Let me first start with the subject of Compliance and Ethical Responsibility As a social animal, we are expected to live life to be in compliance. Being compliant is everyone's responsibility. In many situations however, we do compromise on compliance despite penalties, closures and loss of reputation. We find our ways. There are a few who go beyond compliance and follow social norms and…
Read the full post →Today Just Transition is a hot topic of discussion and action. Just Transition (JT) featured strongly at the COP26 and COP27 with leadership taken by the International Labor Organization (ILO). ILO defines JT as greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind. The context is to the…
Read the full post →Sources of pollution are generally categorized into point and nonpoint pollution. Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution refers to diffused pollution of our environment that does not originate from an identifiable point pollution source. NPS generally results from atmospheric deposition, precipitation and land run off and seepage to the soil and groundwater. Tracing the source of nonpoint pollution is often difficult. Types of NPS of water pollution include sediment, nutrients, toxic contaminants and pathogens. The…
Read the full post →Most of my readers know about my friend who lives on the 104th floor in the tallest building in Mumbai. For those who don’t know, this friend of mine is the richest person in the world. His wealth is more than the wealth of Ambani’s (I mean Mukesh), Adanis, Tatas (including Shapoorji’s), Birla’s and Mahindra’s, Agarwal’s and Mittal’s all put together. He pays income tax as…
Read the full post →[Few weeks ago, I wrote a blog titled Those Three Letter Words . This blog was a satire on the terms EIA and ESG. Many readers liked this blog. Todays blog is on the 4 letter words that most investors use.] Due Diligence (DD) is one of the important steps in lending or participating in equity or in merger and acquisition. DDs can result into…
Read the full post →Be not the first by whom the new are tried Nor the last to lay the old aside. —Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism,1711 Professor’s wife called me last week. She said that Professor has been behaving rather strangely now a days. She had taken him to a psychiatric and the diagnosis was that he was facing “skepteria”. Apparently skepteria is a disease when the person remains…
Read the full post →Many of us have witnessed the genesis and growth of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). My own exposure to EIA was early in 1980s with Dr Bindu Lohani, who was a Professor then at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. Dr Lohani later joined Asian Development Bank (ADB) . We continued our discussions on EIA and worked on projects when I started working as a…
Read the full post →Now that COP26 has commenced in Glasgow, there has been quite a hustle bustle in the climate circles. Lots of new publications and data are pouring in and several pre-COP and during-COP meetings are held with leads taken by policy pundits, investors, researchers and the activists. Debate between developing and developed world however continues. Some describe this as a “climate divide”. Lobbying is already happening…
Read the full post →Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is recognized as an integral element of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on quality education and a key enabler of all other SDGs. As the lead UN agency on ESD, UNESCO is responsible for the coordination of the ESD for 2030 Framework. Several tools have been developed by UNESCP to facilitate introducing sustainability. These tools however limit to developing national sustainability education…
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