Environment Summit to spread awareness among corporate sector

Kolkata, Feb 14 (UNI) With a view to establishing a greener roadmap for global business, the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), in association with the West Bengal Environment department and Pollution Control Board, will work to spread awareness among the corporate sector on environment management and energy efficiency issues.

Talking to mediapersons at the inauguration of a three-day Environment Partnership Summit, 2008, here today, ICC president Harsh K Jha said, ''The summit aims at establishing partnerships with key stakeholders to draw up effective strategies to combat climate change, establishing linkages with key players for facilitating adoption of advanced technologies in the area of waste management and drawing up comprehensive action plan for integrated water resource conservation.'' He informed that the ICC would be working with the government to spread awareness amongst the industries in the field of waste management, rainwater harvesting, recycling, reuse and efficient usage of water, energy efficiency and other technological measures.

ICC Environment Expert Committee Chairman B K Singh, who was also present on the occasion, said, ''The CEO Forum will bring together, on one platform, the organisational heads of Coca Cola, Ambuja Cement, Phoenix Yule, Tara International, USAID, Bengal Shrachi, GTZ and others, to discuss the achievements in, and further scope for, reducing the carbon footprint of business organisations.'' He added that the summit will also host a round table of State Pollution Control Boards, to be participated by top officials from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerela and Tamil Nadu, besides the Central and West Bengal Pollution Control Boards (WBPCB).

WBPCB Member Secretary Debal Ray said, ''The West Bengal government strongly believes in sustainable development and maintenance of environmental and ecological sanctity of the state.'' MORE UNI DPM KK DB1709