Cement, Energy & Environment Jan-Mar 2002

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT ' I ACCOUNTING IN CEMENT SECTOR– A CASE STUDY Tetra Tech -CTI, E-mail: clean@ndc. vsnl.ne t.in Fax: (011) 6144380 Tetra Tech, under Clean Technology initiative, conducted a carbon accounting program in cement sector. Shree Cement Ltd., Beawar jn Rajasthan and Maihar Cement, Satna, Madhya Pradesh were selected for this s tudy. These two units enthusiastically participated in the accounting project and provided their feedback for improvements to be incorporated into the road testing guidelines. This accounting was done using the guidelines developed by Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Initiative of World Resource Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (vVBCSD). These guidelines were still in the developing phase and are available for road testing in various sectors. Th e comments on improvement of guidelines given by the two cement companies and the Tetra Tech team were sent to WRI fo r their inclusion in the fina l documents. Form a developing country perspective this feedback was appreciated wo rldwide and is ava ilabl e on the www.ghgprotocol.com website. Courtesy: Clean Technology Initiative, Quarterly Report, Apr -Jtm 2001. Web: www.cleantechindiainitiative.com 42 THE CHANGING PERSPECTIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE CEMENT INDUSTRY A.K. Chatterjee, The Chatterjee Group, India. Environmental management for quite some time now has continued to be an issue of subs tantial concern particularly, to the manufacturing sector. The cement industry, being the larges t in terms of production volume amongst all man-made materials in the world, has obviously been carrying on itself a substantial share of this concern. With passage of time, however, the nature of this concern has changed. While at the initial stages the concern was to understand the impact of all the pollutants generated by the industry on the environment, in the subsequent period the concern was mainly on compliance wi th the regulations in force. Later the indus try realised that it must remain p ro fitable , while accounting for the environmental impacts of its activities. This challenge required a solution that enabled firms to maximize their economic gains, while taking the necessary steps to minimize the environmental degradation caused by their production processes. This ushered in the stage of pollution prevention or cleaner production. Now the perspective of this challenge has radically changed from looking at the production processes to examining the inputs and outputs of energy, materials and environmental impacts directly attributable to the manuf~cture and functioning of a product or a service system throughout its life cycle and that too on a voluntary basis. The present article traces this progressive shift of concerns and perspec tives of environmental