India’s state-owned NTPC Ltd ranks as the world’s sixth-largest polluter among 40 large power-generating companies, according to Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington-based think-tank. Four Chinese companies are among the top polluters, followed by a South African company at the fifth place.The findings are part of CGD’s latest database on global carbon emissions, called…
Margaret Mead once said, ‘The only person who likes change is a wet baby’, to which Hunter Lovins added ‘and the baby squalls all the way through the process.’ So change is never easy, especially on the big issues of sustainability. In thinking about this, I have found Richard Beckhard and David Gleicher’s Formula for…
The 6th Toy Biz International (June 30-July 2, 2012) at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, has brought ‘green toys’ into sharp focus with buyers as well as general visitors showing relatively more interest in them. India’s biggest B2B toy expo had more than 2,000 visitors on the second day. This year’s theme – Destination India –…
‘Are your corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes misleading? ‘ was the straight question that CauseBecause asked Coca-Cola and Pepsi a day after a PLoS Medicine article pointed fingers at beverage makers saying their CSR is another one of their tactics to gain public support and avert attention from their drinks’ ill effects. The answers that…
Since 1992, when the last Rio summit happened, the average temperature across the globe has gone up by half a degree; the pollution levels have climbed up by 15 per cent; natural disasters have affected over 4.4 billion people; and primary forest areas have decreased by 740 million acres (an area larger than Argentina). As…
Lack of cooperation on supervision of sovereign credit raters is undermining Rio+20’s pursuit of new sustainable development goals… When Cyprus announced in June 2012 that it was edging closer to being the latest Eurozone country to seek bailout money, the fragile nature of how the world deals with sovereign debt was thrust once again into…
Come Monsoon session, the 56-year-old Companies Bill incorporating social responsibility obligations on corporate houses will be rewritten. Although the government, amid stiff resistance from the corporate world, is not making the CSR obligation compulsory, it is putting a moral obligation on companies to report their CSR initiatives. It has also made it mandatory for each…
Maharashtra’s environment department is preparing a proposal to levy tax on environment polluters. The proposal, say sources, is almost ready and will soon be tabled before the state cabinet. As per the proposal, any activity that affects the environment, like stone-crushing, mining, vehicular pollution, industries and big infrastructural projects, will be liable to pay environment…
Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) was established in 1979 to engage in various social development programmes in the rural areas within which Tata Steel operated its business, specifically the mines and collieries spread over Jharkhand (until 2000, a part of the state of Bihar) and Orissa. Both states are located in eastern India. …
Mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) spend would become a law for the first time anywhere in the world, if the recommendations of the Parliament’s standing committee on finance, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha, are accepted by the Lok Sabha. The committee has recommended that the Companies Bill, 2011, make it mandatory for…
