About 40 cos to be part of CII green gases project

Hyderabad: Around 40 companies, including Tata Steel, Godrej & Boyce, Infosys, Wipro, Ashok Leyland and Apollo Hospitals, have agreed to implement an accounting standard on greenhouse gas emissions.

The accounting standard is being developed by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the World Resources Institute (WRI).

Mr K.S. Venkatagiri, Principal Counsellor, CII, said that they expect about 500 companies to be a part of the programme by the end of next year.
“Gases including carbon dioxide, methane and fluorinated gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases (GHG). We will help them implement these accounting standards,” he added.

US EPA will provide the experience gained by running the Climate Leaders Programme for the past six years in the US and share knowledge. WRI, on the other hand, will serve as the think-tank and the methodology it develops will be used in implementing the mission in India, Mr Venkatagiri said.

“In the US, around 200 companies are voluntary partners of the GHG inventory programme. This has helped them to reduce the cost of operations and increase profitability. In fact, in the US, investor funds are more interested in these companies, which comply with GHG accounting standards,” said Mr James T. Sullivan, Director (climate leaders’ office of air & radiation) US EPA.

“We will also provide software tools to develop methodologies to gauge the emission levels as well as background on the methods used to make the calculations,” Mr Venkatagiri said.

Waste management:

CII has also tied up with a Canadian organisation for waste management. “These are part of our mission on sustainable growth. We are also in talks with a Swedish agency, IVL, for water resources use and management,” said Venkatagiri.

The industry body is in talks with pharma companies, including Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Aurobindo and NATCO to implement a pilot project for water management.