India at a critical stage in balancing social and environment capital, says official

New Delhi, Jan.21 : India is at a critical stage to balance social and environment capital with rapid economic growth, said Meena Gupta, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, today.

Inaugurating the International Conference on Sustainable Industrial Network, organised by CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development here, Gupta said that as India prepares to become an economic superpower, "we have to take steps for overcoming institutional and infrastructure bottlenecks inherent in the system."

"The primary goal of sustainable industrial networking is to promote sustainable development at the global, regional, and local levels. Many Indian companies are recognising the challenge of going global and looking at the implications of sustainable development. Sustainable Industrial Network (SINET) is promoting the sustainable use of renewable resources and minimal use of non-renewable ones. The challenge of SINET is to reduce the overall environmental burden on an industrial system that provides some service to society," she added.

Steve Rochlin, CEO, Accountability, North America, said that while problems were known to all, who was accountable to solve these problems.

He further asked how do we look at development and competitiveness? Responding to challenges has bearing on national competitiveness. dding a fifth dimension to Michael Porter's competitiveness model, Rochlin stressed the need for an enabling environment to provide a level-playing field to progressive companies and build responsible competitiveness. Civil and private sectors need to be provided with incentives to take accountability for solving the challenges. Collaborative governance is the solution to make stakeholder constituencies accountable, he said.

Arun Maira, Chairman, The Boston Consulting Group (India) Private Limited, began with the traditional paradigm of development the developed countries have followed. The developed countries have glasses full in terms of well-being, while China and India seem to follow suit. For sustainability, we need a new paradigm of development. Natural networks could provide valuable lessons for self-sustaining economic networks.

Gurpal Singh, Deputy Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry, said SINET brought together initiatives of Indian industry in sustainable methods of production. There was a need to apply micro-environment management to management systems. CII strives to foster inclusive growth and will get involved with Sweden and enhance collaboration with Swedish businesses. He also called for policy measures to enhance Indian industry for sustainable growth.

ANI