· this report has been published with the support of inwent – capacity building international...

This report has been published with the support of InWEnt – Capacity Building International within the framework of the project

“Corporate Sustainability Management in Indian Companies (CoSMIC)”.

For more information on the project please refer to: www.gc21.inwent.org/cosmic

CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development

2nd Floor, Thapar House 124, Janpath, New Delhi 110 001

Tel.: 91 11 4150 2301 – 02, Fax: 91 11 4150 1924 – 25 Email: [email protected] Website: www.sustainabledevelopment.in

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The Success Story of CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development

Context

Origin

On the eve of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) [also known as the Earth Summit or Rio Summit] in June 1992, a new global organisation - Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) - was founded to involve business in sustainable development issues. The primary focus then was to give industry and business a voice in the Earth Summit. Today, after 18 years, with more than 170 members of important global companies, the WBCSD (morphed from BCSD) continues its business leadership catalyzing change towards sustainable development, based on eco-efficiency, innovation, and corporate social responsibility.

This milestone conference brought about the realisation that Indian industry in general and CII’s own membership in particular should be made aware of the role of business in sustainable development. To implement a key conference recommendation, CII decided to establish an Environmental Management Division (EMD) that would work under the aegis of the CII National Environment Committee. EMD was established on Monday, June 1, 1992. This was the origin of Indian industry’s contribution towards meeting the goals of Agenda 21, a declaration that was passed during the Earth Summit.

by Avininder Singh, Chairman, CII National Environment Committee. Eminent global, regional and national personalities participated in this milestone conference. This included Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Summit, Stephan Schmidheiny, Founder of the BCSD and author of Changing Course, Hugh Faulkner, a former Canadian politician, industrialist & co-founder of BCSD, and Ratan Tata. Through this conference, Indian industry leaders made a strong commitment and a solid intellectual foundation was laid to what is today the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CII-ITC CESD).

A similar and parallel movement emerged in India at the very same time as the BCSD. In 1991, Ratan Tata of the Tata Group of Companies, a leading corporate conglomerate in India, was selected to represent India, China and South-East Asia in the BCSD. Being a past president of the leading industry association, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), known as Confederation of Engineering Industry (CEI) at that time, Ratan Tata urged the industry association to organise a regional conference “Changing Course towards Sustainable Development”. Recognising the importance of this emerging discipline, the then Director-General, Tarun Das, willingly accepted this responsibility. The regional initiative was lead

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Sustainability Evolution in India

We had to start from the very basic ... from the drawing board. There was no model of such an environmental organisation within an industry association anywhere in the world. We had to chart a new path – a path that evolved as we progressed.

K.P. Nyati, Former Principal Adviser, CII-ITC CESD

To source the expertise that such a Division will need, CII brought in K.P. Nyati, a chemical engineer who had a wealth of operational experience on energy & environment issues, including having been trained through the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft e.V. (CDG) and working with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmBH on a bilateral technical assistance programme on environmental management. At the same time, CII identified Seema Arora, a young engineering professional, to grow with this Division. As history unfolded, it was Seema Arora who was the institutional bedrock and grew to become the head of CII-ITC CESD.

Strong contextual knowledge, many years of working experience, a new fillip for business & industry to contribute towards sustainable development and an extraordinary opportunity to make things happen. These elements were in place to set-up the Environmental Management Division (EMD).

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Ushering eco-efficiency [1992-1995]

At that time, the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) mandated the submission of the Environmental Statement (Form V) for all industries. Given this new initiative, Indian industry needed to be made aware of this new requirement and what it encompassed. Starting from the first principles, EMD crafted the technical content and unleashed a series of awareness / information dissemination programmes for both industry as well as regulators of the different State Pollution Control Boards on preparing the Environmental Statement. This marked the beginning of EMD’s contribution towards capacity building initiatives on sustainable development.

At that time, environmental management was seen solely as a compliance issue. Certain section of industry opined that they could effectively manage the compliance issues themselves and without any external CII support. It was this feedback that got EMD thinking, reflecting and turning to promote eco-efficiency, which makes both business sense and environmental sense. Therefore, EMD moved from supporting compliance through these training programmes to offer technical facilitation services that promote eco-efficiency in industry. Waste minimisation and pollution prevention formed the basis of eco-efficiency. The first breakthrough was with the Sona group, an automobile ancillary company. That was the beginning of a number of eco-efficiency initiatives in various industry sectors. These brought in significant financial savings to the respective companies through smart resource use efficiency improvements. EMD changed Indian industry’s outlook towards environmental management and started the eco-efficiency movement in India.

In parallel, EMD continued its work on environmental legislation. Compiling a user-friendly publication “Guidebook on Environmental Legislation” was the next step and this was a grand success. Fuelled by this success and recognising this information need, EMD brought out the quarterly newsletter, Green Business Opportunities, which served as a communication vehicle on legislation as well as eco-efficiency. This first guidebook sparked-off a number of such similar guidance publications.

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Capacity building on EMS had to be done with all stakeholders – industry, consultants, regulators and auditors / certifying agencies. To carry out these tasks, the internal capacity within EMD had to be first built. In collaboration with UNIDO, EMD developed a training kit on environmental auditing and conducted a week-long programme to build its capacity. This was the first. As a strategy, EMD built internal capacity prior to offering services to Indian industry. This became an important and integral element in the style of EMD’s (and now CII-ITC CESD)’s functioning.

On the financial aspects, the well-known commitment and largesse of the Tata Group of companies was once again evident. Ratan Tata agreed to underwrite all the expenses of the EMD for the first three years or during the setting-up of the Division. Nevertheless, EMD was clear that it would aim to “walk-the-talk” on eco-efficiency. EMD wanted to demonstr ate that such a Division can be revenue generating and self-sufficient in quick time. EMD was equipped with the experience of an existing working model of another technical / professional services division within CII – the Total Quality Management (TQM) Division. Drawing from this experience, EMD had a vantage position to assist industry gain from environmental management just like industry had benefited quality management. The momentum so generated helped EMD to become financially self-sufficient within one and a half years of its formation. Ever since, EMD has remained financially self-sufficient. This has been a vital element of EMD’s (and now CII-ITC CESD)’s success.

At this time, EMD picked up the two international standards – Canadian CSA Z750 and British BS7750 – on environmental management systems (EMS) that were just released. EMD realised the potential that these standards have in institutionalising eco-efficiency and decided to promote it aggressively. The early days were difficult as EMS was a totally new concept. Studying the standard in detail, understanding the various requirements and creating Indian examples to demonstrate its utility was quite a challenge. Using the access through the CII membership, the design and implementation of EMS was started in selected companies. Nicco Corporation, a prominent CII member, worked towards developing the EMS and also towards getting the EMS certified by an

external agency. At that time, only the draft ISO 14001 standard for EMS had been released. Nicco Corporation went on to becoming the first Indian company to be certified to EMS to both BS 7750 and the draft ISO 14001 standards. This was done with CII-EMD’s technical assistance. Very soon, seeing the potential that EMS has, other companies followed. This demand arose from the global partners urging Indian industry to demonstrate better environmental performance through certification. In the liberalised economic framework that India had chosen, this became an important driver. That flagged-off EMD’s facilitation service on EMS which introduced a systematic and structured approach for companies to address environmental issues, both legal and

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pollution prevention initiatives that brought in financial savings. Respondents to a questionnaire administered to seek stakeholder views indicated that introducing and establishing ISO 14001 / EMS is the single biggest contribution that EMD has made in India. In fact, it was a remarkable contribution globally too. Introducing EMS with embedded with pollution prevention was an approach that EMD showed the direction globally as well.

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Soon after its establishment in 1992, EMD put forward a proposal to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for conducting a range of capacity building initiatives focused on Indian industry and relevant to sustainable development. In October 1994, an MOU was signed between CII and CIDA. The pilot phase of the CII-CIDA Environmental Management Project (referred hereafter as CIDA project) was done in 1995. This focused on facilitating pilot pollution prevention initiatives in the Indian metal finishing and auto component industries. Under the pilot phase, CII was also represented in the ISO TC 207 Committee that was working towards finalising the draft EMS standard. The CIDA project was implemented in full scale subsequently and became the mainstay of the next five years. At that time, there were no private organisations that received bilateral assistance to pursue development goals. The CIDA project was the very first of its kind. The changed economic policies in 1991s – which gave a greater role to the private sector - assisted in convincing the Government of India. EMD had broken new ground in India.

Delivering Environmental Management [1996-2001]

Policy development

Environmental policy in India was evolving and keeping pace with the liberalised economic framework. Ministry of Environment & Forests (MOEF) was driving the introduction of new environmental policies. EMD was called upon to play

Indian industry was agog with the potential that eco-efficiency and EMS brought in terms of financial savings and institutionalising better approaches respectively. Riding on this wave, EMD entered a phase that included a whole range of activities with the central theme of environmental capacity building. These activities were grouped under four pillars: policy development, training and awareness, technical consultancy and business information services. The CIDA project strengthened EMD across all these pillars.

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a key role in defining key policy instruments. Using the expertise available under the CIDA project, EMD sourced appropriate Canadian expertise and contributed substantively in policy areas such as the EIA Notification 1994 and Hazardous Waste Management Rules 2000. Several sector meetings between Government and industry were organised to collect feedback relevant to the policy development. All of these resulted in formulation of policy that had incorporated industry concerns. Having been closely involved in policy development, EMD took on the role of educating the regulators, who were not always informed about the provisions of the new legislation. This built EMD’s credibility with the regulators. This excellent rapport helped immensely in resolving industry issues / concerns, an important function of the industry association.

Training and awareness

Having built the industry appetite on environmental management, substantive training and awareness generation was required. The CIDA project offered technical expertise and resources to strengthen Indian industry through the building EMD’s capacity. A new, wide array of activities and products were introduced. This included ISO 14001-based EMS, environmental auditing, environmental impact assessment, voluntary environmental agreements, ecolabelling, hazardous waste management, environmental risk management for financial institutions and occupational health & safety management. There were several Canadian experts, who worked with Indian industry in India and several industry representatives who visited Canada for an exchange & learning experience. Industry know-how and know-why on these various subjects grew substantially. Most importantly, individual expertise was built within the EMD team and the industry participants of the various capacity building programmes. A whole army of environmental professionals emerged in India.

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Technical consultancy

Training and awareness required hands-on support. Indian industry needed support in actual implementation. The technical consultancy work of EMD served this need. Broadly, there were two types of consultancy work within EMD. The first was solely industry demand driven and delivered on purely commercial terms. By this time, EMD had established a strong team of professionals. Facilitating pollution prevention, waste minimisation and ISO 14001-based EMS in a wide range of industry sub-sectors (e.g. mining, metal processing – aluminum and steel, auto manufacturing, electronics, engineering and chemical industries) that were located across the length and breadth of India. EMD integrated pollution prevention within the EMS in such an effective manner that the EMS delivered resource use efficiency and financial savings on an ongoing manner. Indian industry benefited a great deal. This was hailed internationally as best practice. This was truly a far-reaching contribution that EMD had made. Also, in terms of sheer numbers, it would be fair to say that almost all Indian companies having an EMS have benefited from EMD’s activities in an either direct or indirect way. The second set of EMS activities was also done with technical and financial support received from the USAID project. Awareness, knowledge and skills on EMS got a substantial boost and also triggered further interest in working towards EMS certification.

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The CII-CIDA Environmental Management project was able to bring about a tremendous transformation in terms of alerting Indian companies on global compulsions to be environment friendly. This project helped Indian companies to prepare for ISO 14001 certification and informed Indian regulators and companies about hazardous waste assessment and treatment.

Viney Gupta, Trade Adviser, Canadian High Commission

EMD’s contribution towards environmental management has had a substantive multiplier effect. By offering an excellent learning and launching forums for companies and individuals, CII has triggered a sense of continued interest and commitment in so many individuals who have been associated. This goes way beyond customary accomplishments.

Srinivasan R., Alumni, EMD (now CII-ITC CESD), presently with DuPont Singapore

Most of our companies have engaged the professional services of CII’s Environmental Management Division over the last two decades. We have built our capacity, improved our performance and continue to benefit from the mutually enriching association that our two organisations share.

Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers Limited

Supported with technical assistance under the CIDA project, EMD conducted a range of awareness generation and skill building programmes with EMS as the central theme. All these programmes were conducted either as in-company and inter-company / public programmes, and were tailor-made to suit the various industry needs. In environmental auditing, EMD introduced the 6-day auditor training programmes, which were initially conducted in collaboration with Regional Institute of Environmental Technology (RIET), Singapore. Approved by the Environmental Auditors Registration Association (EARA), now Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA), this programme was responsible for building the environmental auditing capacity in India.

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Business information services

With the growing interest in environmental management, the need for business information also grew substantively. To address this need, EMD organised three Environment Summits in the years 1999, 2000 and 2001. All of these served as excellent forum for the exchange of information, know-how and experience between renowned experts from many countries and Indian industry. The other milestone event was the Climate Technology Bazaar that was organised alongside the UNFCCC Conference of Parties held in New Delhi in 2000. Also, as a part of its information outreach activities, in 1997, EMD launched the Green Business Opportunities, a quarterly newsletter that provided information updates and new perspectives on various environmental issues. All of these contributed in keeping Indian industry up-to-date on environmental management.

Through these range of services, EMD built substantively on the wave of enthusiasm and interest that ISO 14001 / EMS had created. Respondents to the questionnaire credited EMD for facilitating Indian industry to move from seeing environmental management solely as a regulatory issue as one that can also lead to resource use efficiency. In other words, EMD transformed the environmental management mindset from a strict pollution control to a broader pollution

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Moving towards Sustainability [2002-2005]

Also, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s work in promoting sustainability reporting influenced this move. Companies taking to reporting viewed sustainability as a concept that integrated economic, environmental and social considerations. Optimising the economic, environmental and social impacts of a company’s products, services and operations over the long term was the determinant of sustainability performance. In addition, consultations with global companies revealed that transition to sustainability was a natural next step. It was increasingly accepted that environment should be seen as a key pillar within sustainability and integrated with the various other aspects within the company’s overall drive towards sustainability. Realising that this will be the way forward, EMD began its work in this new area, which marked the genesis of Indian industry’s move towards sustainability.

The term “sustainable” has been in EMD’s dictionary ever since its establishment. EMD was always seen as an industry contribution towards sustainable development. However, in the beginning of the new century, there was an increasing need for EMD to look beyond “environment”, i.e. to work on other aspects of sustainability. This need came from several stakeholders. Canadian experts brought to share their information, knowledge and expertise under the CIDA project - both the first and second projects – indicated that there was a global transition from environment to sustainability in the not-so-distant horizon.

prevention or eco-efficiency. And then, EMD ushered the concept of EMS with pollution prevention embedded in it. Subsequent to that, EMD widened EMS to bring about a broader coverage of occupational health & safety issues through EHS management systems.

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Subjects in which EMD built internal capacity

To deliver environmental management to Indian industry, EMD build its internal capacity in the following subjects:

Eco-efficiency (Pollution Prevention)

Ecolabelling,

EMS

Environmental auditing,

Environmental impact assessment,

Environmental risk management for financial

institutions

Hazardous waste management

Occupational health & safety management

Voluntary environmental agreements

Apart from these external influences, EMD’s own activities pertaining to management systems moved to include occupational health & safety as well as social accountability,

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EINS – Key outcomes

Awareness creation of the overall concept

of Sustainability Management Systems encompassing elements of social, environmental and quality standards.

Enhanced understanding of the state-of-the-

art European industrial quality, environmental and social standards in the automotive industry.

Strengthened local capacity within project

partners (CII), local industry associations (ACMA and SIAM) and automotive supply chain on Sustainability Management Systems.

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All of these influences lead EMD to initiate more activities in the field of sustainability. Under the second phase of the CIDA project, an approach towards sustainability - ten steps to sustainability – was developed and piloted in 4 companies. Using the experience of the pilots, EMD defined CII’s Corporate Sustainability Management framework as a tool available for a company to address their business case for strategic action towards sustainable competitiveness. This framework comprised the following broad areas of work: (1) leadership and vision, (2) stakeholder engagement, (3) integration of management systems and (4) sustainability reporting. Defining this integrated framework for companies to pursue and for EMD to offer as a portfolio of services was a concluding output of the second phase of the CIDA project. The seeds of the transformation to sustainability had already been sown in Indian industry. The new area of work was understood and its importance was appreciated. Commitments were made, e.g. preparation of sustainability reports, and a new phase was ushered.

In parallel, EMD implemented a donor-assisted programme titled “EU-India Network for Sustainability (EINS).” Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH (InWEnt) lead this programme. The aim was to enhance the capabilities of the Indian automotive component industry sector to adopt and implement environmental, social and quality standards for competitiveness and productivity gains. This programme brought up-to-date and built the capacity of the automotive component industry to deal with various sustainability issues. In specific, the highlights included the following:

Established Strategic partnership with sectoral

Industry Associations, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) and Society for Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Delivered 6 training modules, 10 trainings

for over 200 representatives of companies, trained 65 Trainers (intermediaries/multiplier) to carry forward training and designed & published manuals for training modules

Implemented Best of EINS training with 23

intermediaries/multipliers.

Organised EU India Best practice Roundtable

on Sustainability Management with over 100 participants; Developed a Background Paper and published Proceedings for the Roundtable.

Conducted exposure tour for company

representatives and other stakeholders to Germany and Austria for sharing best practices.

Organised local exposure tour on Sustainability

Management in practice.

Overall, this programme helped Indian companies in this sector in retaining its competitive position in the world markets. This programme also reinforced the need for EMD to expand its thinking towards sustainability. Questionnaire respondents opined that the Indian industry’s move from environmental management to sustainability was made easy due to all of EMD’s activities. EMD (now CII-ITC CESD) became the vanguard of the sustainability movement in India.

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which were outside the subject of environment management. During this phase, training and facilitation pertaining to occupational health & safety management systems were the main focus as companies required these services. Through these activities, companies were able to get much more out of the management systems. This also facilitated the broadening of the thinking within Indian industry that environment should not be seen as a separate silo and should be integrated with other sustainability issues.

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Worldwide there is an increasing realization that societal challenges arising out of poverty, environmental degradation and climate change pose an unprecedented threat to the future sustainability of businesses across the globe. Businesses can no longer confine itself to the narrow goal of enhancing shareholder value alone but will need to do so while contributing to a much larger purpose of creating societal value. Rising civil society awareness and tougher regulations imply that those companies that pursue sustainable practices and deli ver larger societal value will also gain from a new source of competitive advantage.

As a first step towards catalyzing a sustainability movement in India, the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development was set up to address the institutional void in developing the requisite capability among Indian industry. The Centre will endeavour to transform Indian businesses by providing thought leadership, promoting awareness and building capacity.

Y C Deveshwar, Past President - CII, Chairman- CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development and Chairman - ITC Limited

Mainstreaming corporate sustainability [2006-2010]

services took time. The same perseverance of the early EMD early years was required once again. Very soon, the Centre established itself as a fountainhead on sustainability.

With mainstreaming corporate sustainability as the vision, the need of Indian industry was to move from business-as-usual practices to sustainable practices. Indian industry needed guidance and directions on becoming sustainable enterprises. Realising this need, the Centre identified four operational pillars (Refer box). EMD’s activities were fully integrated with these operational pillars. All through its history, the Centre has been continuously making efforts to improve its capacity to strengthen its services and offerings to the Indian industry. In 2007, a new 4-year bilateral assistance project was launched with Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH (InWEnt), an agency commissioned by German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development for implementing capacity building. The COrporate Sustainability Management in Indian Companies (COSMIC) project is an initiative to promote Corporate Sustainability Management (CSM) countrywide and across all sectors. COSMIC has defined

The momentum towards sustainability grew rapidly. This promoted CII to consider a separate Centre for sustainable development. The then CII President, Yogi Deveshwar, was keen to see such a Centre inaugurated during his tenure. On January 18, 2006, CII established the CII-ITC Centre for Sustainable Development (CII-ITC CESD or referred as Centre) in New Delhi. This was announced in the CII Partnership Summit 2006 that was held in Kolkata. As a Chairman of ITC Limited, one of India’s foremost private sector companies with a turnover of over US$ 5 billion (2009 figures) and a globally recognised leader in sustainability, Yogi Deveshwar demonstrated his commitment to the Centre in several ways. For a start, he realised the need for financial assistance to facilitate the Centre’s activities and committed to underwrite partially the expenses of the Centre. As a part of this assistance, ITC Limited provided its premises to locate the Centre in the heart of New Delhi’s commercial Connaught Place area. The first couple of years of the new Centre were tough as streamlining these new sustainability

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Developed a structured approach towards

Sustainability Management Systems and capacity-building on modern techniques including quality and environmental management concepts and the

implementation of efficient management

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Strengthened business partnerships between

Indian and European companies by sensitising the automotive supply chain on issues of sustainability.

Contributed to the achievement of the

objectives of the Asia-wide Programme.

Facilitated the transfer of know-how and

joint collaboration between EU and Asian companies and experts in the field of Sustainability Management.

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Centre’s Four operational pillars

1.Promoteawareness

2.Encouragethoughtleadership

3.Capacitybuilding

4.Recogniseexcellence

four performance objectives: (1) Advance the capabilities of the Centre staff on selected demand-oriented CSM training topics for enhanced delivery of training and advisory services, (2) Strengthen the capabilities of the four regional offices of CII in India to facilitate training and advisory services on CSM, (3) Establish a structured private sector dialogue to strengthen regional cooperation on corporate sustainability in South Asia and (4) Facilitate networking for the Centre to integrate their experience and the Indian private sector perspective on corporate sustainability practices into international and networks. The focus of these performance objectives has perfect synergies with the four operational pillars of the Centre.

to network through this annual milestone mega event and to collect latest up-to-date information.

Awareness continues to be generated through the quarterly magazine, which was re-launched with a re-defined focus as “Sustainability Tomorrow.” There are about 1,000 subscribers to this quarterly magazine. An electronic newsletter service called “Sustainability Outlook” was introduced. Event-linked thematic papers are periodically produced to supplement the awareness generation efforts. All of these serve to keep Indian industry informed of the latest developments in the field of sustainability management.

Awareness building

Awareness on corporate sustainability was the foremost need. A new beginning was made with institutionalising an annual Sustainability Summit, which is held in November / December each year. The Summit brings together various stakeholders – Government, civil society organisations and businesses – to deliberate on various themes associated with this central concept of sustainability. The first of its kind was held in December 2006 and was a huge success. Streamlined to be an annual event, the Summit has met its purpose over the last four years consecutively. About 1,200 people were reached through these Summits. Indian industry awareness on sustainability issues have multiplied manifold. These Summits provide an excellent opportunity

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Thought leadership

To achieve the intended strategic re-orientation, it was clear that corporate sustainability had to be lead by leaders of industry and business. To kick-off, the Centre organised a strategic event – a CEO forum on sustainability - in New Delhi in the very first month of its inauguration. Through the concluding CIDA project, global sustainability thought leaders were brought to show the direction that Indian industry should take to achieve sustainability leadership. In addition, CII’s Corporate Sustainability Framework was presented as a way forward.

In May 2007, the Prime Minister of India addressed the CII Annual Conference. He urged Indian Industry to adopt inclusive and responsible growth strategies. He emphasised that Indian industry must rise to the challenge of making our growth processes both efficient and inclusive. He invited corporate India to be a partner in making India a more humane and just society. He outlined a new Partnership for Inclusive Growth with a Ten-Point Social Charter. CII defined corporate sustainability – being championed by the Centre - as one way forward for Indian industry to respond to the Prime Minister’s clarion call. This gave a further boost to Indian industry’s focus in this area and also to the Centre’s work.

The Centre designed a new programme to continue its drive towards thought leadership. The experience gained had to be analysed, new challenges & opportunities were to be confronted and fresh strategies had to be promoted by the leadership. To address this need, the Centre started an annual Business Leadership Programme on Sustainability. In a certain sense, this programme continues what the CEO forum had first initiated, i.e. to promote awareness, generate commitment, inform industry leadership and urge further resolve. The programme was designed, developed and delivered by the Centre in collaboration with Cornell University.

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Conducted over the last three years, this leadership programme is ensuring a continued momentum towards sustainability thought leadership in Indian industry. Business leaders from Indian industry are directly benefiting every year from the latest and the best of sustainability expertise that is available globally. This strategic input to the business leaders is resulting in the integration of sustainability considerations into the mainstream business strategy. Also, business leaders are translating strategies into effective action initiatives within their respective companies. Sustainability issues are no longer seen only as operational issues. These are being firmly positioned as corporate boardroom issues in many companies – an important contribution that the Centre has made. Questionnaire feedback revealed that bringing about thought leadership through this business leadership programme is an important contribution of the Centre.

On corporate sustainability, India is the perfect microcosm for the whole world. Indian industry has extraordinary talents and skills, drive to innovate, markets to test-out innovative ideas and scale up to cater to the large domestic markets. The Indian experience can be gainfully extrapolated to the rest of the world.

Stuart Hart, Samuel C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management

Business Leaders Programme

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With the heightened concerns towards climate change, the Centre has been conducting various initiatives. Of these, the partnership with Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is particularly noteworthy. In 2007, the Centre and WWF-India entered into a partnership with CDP to bring out the CDP India reports annually. These reports bring out the challenges that Indian companies are facing and outlines how they have integrated climate change considerations with the future business prospects. Published in the last three years, the CDP reports are helping Indian industry understand climate impacts on Indian businesses and leads them to formulate appropriate coping strategies.

with those of sustainability and integrated with the new range of CSM services that were offered. New facilitation and training were offered under the following CSM areas: leadership & strategy, corporate climate change strategy, stakeholder engagement, integration of management systems, and sustainability reporting. Other activities such as training on environmental auditing or facilitating OHS management systems were subsumed under those related to the integration of management systems. The merging of all services within the Centre has aided the integration of activities within companies in Indian industry as well. This has made sustainability initiatives more efficient and effective, which contribute both directly and indirectly to the bottom line.

CII Event at Copenhagen 2009

CII-ITC CESD is a unique success story that has evolved with the evolution of the sustainability discipline. The Centre built its own capacity constantly and then went on to build the capacity of the Indian industry on the latest and the best. Other developing countries, particularly in the SAARC region, need to learn from their experience and replicate similar initiatives to promote sustainability in their respective countries.

Berthold Hoffmann, Senior Project Manager, InWEnt

To achieve corporate sustainability, the importance of action from other stakeholders was realised. The Centre undertook an initiative with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to integrate the triple bottom line thinking into the corporate governance code. The Centre is also assisting Government on building low carbon economies and creating green jobs. Developing green procurement guidelines for India is yet another initiative that the Centre has undertaken.

Training & capacity building

Building knowledge and skills continued to be an ongoing need, particularly considering the changing sustainability landscape. The COSMIC project – whose focus is on training & capacity building – formed the foundation of all the Centre’s activities under this operational pillar. The earlier activities of the EMD were morphed

The industry needs are being catered through the various training programmes conducted across the country. For instance, in just 7 months of 2009 for which data was available, about 3,000 participants benefited from the 191 programmes held across 19 states.

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These programmes cover different CSM areas. The need, content and outcome of selected training programmes are outlined here:

Leadership & Strategy : The Centre’s activities on promoting thought leadership has created an interest and commitment to pursue sustainability strategies in many Indian companies. To assist these companies to make operational these strategies, the Centre is offering a training programme that is aimed at getting the company’s leadership (including the operational leadership) more involved so as to enable the company to realise the benefits of sustainability. The pilot training programme was recently conducted. This proved to be quite a success as the participating companies were presented with a tangible, operational way forward for integrating sustainability.

Corporate Climate Change Strategy : The problem of climate change and the policies associated with it are increasingly causing concern within Indian industry. In this context, the Centre has initiated this training programme that will assist Indian companies re-orient their strategies to integrate climate change considerations (both mitigation and adaptation). Through this programme, Indian industry is already benefiting in terms of better preparedness on the risks and opportunities associated with climate change. Information on the political and economic context within which policies are being formulated is also assisting Indian industry understand and appreciate the broader context.

Integration of management systems : Many management systems – quality, environment,

occupational health & safety, social and food safety - were in use in Indian industry. The proliferation of management systems was causing constraints and difficulties. The value-addition in integration was quite obvious. Realising that, the Centre forged ahead with offering services on the integration of management systems. The Centre initiated this concept of integration of management within Indian industry and still continues to assist a range of companies in this regard. Companies realised the benefits of the synergies and reduced unnecessary documentation / paperwork. Respondents to the questionnaire indicated that earlier EMS was expanded to include coverage of occupational health & safety, and now integration of all management systems is being promoted. Respondents compliment the Centre’s efforts at promoting integration.

Stakeholder engagement : Certain sections of industry were of the view that sustainability initiatives were more a documentation exercise. There was a need to demonstrate an action orientation towards sustainability. The Centre launched the Certified Sustainability Assurance Practicioner programme recently to address this need. The initial feedback revealed that the programme is giving a new fillip to CSM by helping industries align their management systems and sustainability initiatives.

Sustainability reporting : The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) helped in kick-starting the Centre’s work on this subject. Within a short span of 2 years, promoting sustainability reporting in Indian industry has become an established area of the Centre’s work. The Centre was also registered as a certified training provider by the GRI in 2008. Companies are moving towards a more real, practical and effective operational approach towards reporting with the Centre’s assistance.

Respondents to the questionnaire indicated that the Centre enabled Indian industry to understand and implement concepts and tools of sustainability. And, the feedback revealed that the Centre has raised the bar in terms of performance levels by developing industry knowledge and skills on these different sustainability subjects, and has

Subjects in which the Centre built internal capacity

To mainstream corporate sustainability, the Centre’s internal capacity was strengthened in the following areas:

Leadership & Strategy

Corporate Climate Change Strategy

Integration of Management Systems

Stakeholder Engagement

Sustainability Reporting

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effectively brought about the paradigm shift that profits and sustainability performance can go hand-in-hand.

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EMD (now CII-ITC CESD) has played an important leadership role in making sustainability operational in industry and business. The Centre’s contribution is particularly significant globally, given that India is one of the leading emerging economies.

Ernst R. Ligteringen, Chairperson, Global Reporting Initiative.

Sustainability Awards

Looking to the future

Recognising excellence

Companies carrying out sustainability initiatives needed to be rewarded and further encouraged. The importance of recognising role models and exemplars was recognised. This will enthuse other companies to follow similar approaches. Seeing the potential, the Sustainability Awards for the champions in Indian industry was introduced. Using the experience of the CII-EXIM Bank award administered by the Institute of Quality, the Centre developed the model for the Awards programme. This included a questionnaire comprising 33 aspects, different categories, criteria, assessors, and guidelines for decisions. The Centre has institutionalised systems for these Sustainability Awards and has declared winners (36 companies since 2006) for each year. In the most recent year (2009), 81 companies vied for the awards. As intended, these Awards have spurred a drive and a sense of healthy competition within companies to demonstrate leadership in sustainability. Questionnaire feedback has confirmed that these Awards have contributed substantively to be sustainability movement in India.

Over the years, the Centre has firmly established itself in the field of sustainability. The Centre has constantly evolved itself, has ensured that Indian industry is keeping up-to-date of the latest developments, and has aggressively pursued in convincing them on the benefits of sustainability management. Questionnaire respondents felt that CII-ITC CESD has kept Indian industry abreast on sustainable development issues since the Rio Summit in 1992. They opined that the Centre should focus much more on the youth, expand awareness rapidly through the use of media, build human resources, function as a knowledge hub on sustainability, integrate the use of Information, Communication Technologies (ICT), create forums & networks comprising different stakeholders, have a greater regional presence, particularly in size, to cater to this vast country and help make operational sustainability planning upfront in the design of investment projects.

Factors leading to the Centre’s successesAccess to top industry leaders – through its

linkage with the powerful parent organizationThe Centre’s own vision and thought

leadership on sustainability. A highly dedicated team of professionals with

the right blend of knowledge, skills, attitude and perseverance.Extraordinary commitment to keep Indian

There is a need to make the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) aware of the sustainability risks and opportunities. Reaching out the SMEs offer unique challenges that are often difficult to overcome in a sustainability context. In fact, the questionnaire feedback revealed that the Centre has done little in the SME sector so far. To address this gap, the Centre has developed an unique supply chain model to include SMEs and facilitate their move towards sustainability. About 200 SMEs have already benefited and realised financial savings arising from resource use efficiencies. The Centre recognises and accepts that a lot more remains to be done for and with SMEs.

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Greater regional and global presence : The Centre is undoubtedly a global leader in corporate sustainability management. However, most of its work is only in India and the benefits of its leadership are seen only in a limited manner in the region. The Centre will be sharing its expertise in terms of building capacity on sustainability management in the South Asia region. The recently initiated Switch Asia project in Sri Lanka’s food & beverage sector is an example of how the Centre can engage in the region. Based on the success within the South Asia region, the Centre will don a greater global role without compromising on catering to the needs of Indian industry. One such initiative is the recent MOU between the Ethos Institute, Brazil, and the Centre to share the best practices / lessons between emerging economies.

Leadership in sustainable innovations : The Centre’s history has demonstrated excellent innovations through the introduction of new concepts, tools and approaches. But these tend to be in the realm of being reactive and “taking the next step” or being incremental. The needs of today’s business context are to bring radical and transformational changes. The Centre will be shifting its own focus as well as its stakeholders towards facilitating sustainable innovations.

More partnerships and greater integration : The business context is dynamic and rapidly evolving. Sustainability management can no longer be focused only on corporates. Questionnaire respondents opined that the Centre should conduct capacity building on a much larger scale and go beyond the industry sector. There is a need to work with the other stakeholders proactively in order to address even the corporate needs. This implies working in a more focused manner with Government and civil society organisations in order to leverage new partnerships. At the same time, approaches towards sustainability management are also evolving. A multi-disciplinary, multi-perspective approach is now seen as a necessity. These approaches

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To contribute and achieve in these key focus areas, the Centre will need to strengthen its own capacity and its organisational structure. The Centre will transform itself into what is required to serve this broader demand emerging from the business context.

To address these needs and the changing business context within which sustainability has to be realised, the Centre has identified the following key focus areas for the future:

cannot be delivered by any single organisation. Mutually enriching associations through partnerships are required to realise sustainable innovations. Observing this changing context, the Centre will need to increasingly move away from a services or offerings delivery mindset to a partnership mindset. The Centre will move towards considering clients – in industry, Government and civil society - as partners in order to bring about sustainable innovations. Through partnerships, the Centre can integrate its capacity with those of other organisations with complimentary expertise. The Centre will emerge as a stronger and more effective organisation.

industry in line with the latest international developments.The Centre has kept itself up-to-date to the

changing, technologies, approaches and international trends. Being able to make available the best of both

national and international expertise to Indian companies at an affordable price.


Institutional partners

ITC Limited

Tata Group of Companies

Key industry partners

Ambuja Cements

Bajaj Auto Limited

Bharat Heavy Electricals

Godrej & Boyce

Hero Honda

Hindustan Construction Company

HSBC Bank

Intel Limited

Larsen and Toubro

National Thermal Power Corporation

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

Rio Tinto

Sesa Goa

Titan Industries

TVS Motors

Vedanta

Bilaterals & Multilaterals

Asian Development Bank

British High Commission

Canadian International Development Agency

Department for International Development

European Union

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)

Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)

GmBH

International Finance Corporation

Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH

(InWEnt)

Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)

United Nations Industrial Development Organisation

United States Agency for International Development

World Bank

Ministries - Central

Ministry of Corporate Affairs

Ministry of Environment & Forests

Ministry of External Affairs

Ministry of Non-conventional and Renewable Energy

Ministry of Industry

Ministry of Science & Technology

State Governments

Himachal Pradesh State Government

Uttaranchal State Government

International partners

AccountAbility

Ceylon Chamber of Commerce

Carbon Disclosure Project

Cleantech Australia

Cornell University

Ethos Institute, Brazil

Global Reporting Initiative

Regional Institute of Environment & Technology,

Singapore

SustainAbility

World Business Council for Sustainable Development

World Resources Institute

York University

NGOs

Society for Development Alternatives

World Wide Fund for Nature, India

Academic Institutions

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow

Partnerships / Collaborations*

* Indicative List

1991BCSD and CII International Conference on Changing

Course.

1992Established EMD on Monday, June 1, 1992.

1993Awareness programmes on Form V Environmental Audit

Statement.

Introducing eco-efficiency to Indian Industry.

1994EMD commenced work on environmental management

systems (EMS) with the BSI standard, BS 7750.

1995 Draft ISO 14001 standard on EMS was introduced.

EMD assisted the first Indian company, Nicco Corporation,

to be certified to both BS 7750 and draft ISO 14001.

Started the Environmental Auditors Training Programme in

collaboration with RIET-Singapore.

1996

EMD introduced the first Environmental Auditors

Registration Association (EARA)-approved (now IEMA) 6-day training programmes for environmental auditors.

CII-CIDA Environmental Management Project started.

1997Extensive training & faciliation on ISO 14001-based EMS

across the country.

Launch of Environmental Auditors Foundation Course with

support from CIDA.

1998Continued training and facilitated the rapid expansion of

ISO 14001-based EMS.

Launch of the CII -ICICI-USAID project “Promotion of EMS

Certification in India” and exploring clean technology options as an integral part

1999Continued training and facilitated the rapid expansion of

ISO 14001-based EMS.

First Environment Summit, October 1999.

2000Second Environment Summit, October 2000.

Introduced facilitation and training to cover occupational

health & safety through OHSAS 18001.

Organised a Climate Technology Bazaar, UNFCCC

COP8, New Delhi.

2001Conducted the first OHSAS 18001 Auditors Training

Programme with CIDA support.

Third Environment Summit, October 2001.

2002CII-CIDA Environmental Management Project Second

Phase started.

EU-India Network on Sustainability (EINS) initiative

started.

The first approach “Ten steps to Sustainability”

developed.

2003Initiated Sustainability pilots in selected companies.

2004EMD auditors trained on SAI-certified course on social

accountability.

Sustainability pilots continued.

2005Sustainability pilots continued.

CSM framework developed.

2006CII-ITC CESD established.

CEO Forum on Sustainability.

Annual Sustainability Awards created.

Annual Sustainability Summit held for the first time.

MOU with the Global Reporting Initiative on sustainability

reporting

2007Second Sustainability Summit.

First annual Business Leaders Programme on Sustainability

organised.

Integration of Management Systems (IMS) services in full

swing.

Carbon Disclosure Project 2007 released.

Bilateral InWEnt (Capacity Building International)

programme started.

2008Third Sustainability Summit.

Sustainability Reporting and Integration of Management

Systems (IMS) services in full swing

2009Fourth Sustainability Summit.

Climate Technology Exhibition in collaboration with

MoEF.

Milestones

www.sustainabledevelopment.in

· this report has been published with the support of inwent – capacity building international...

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