Green chemistry can give a boost to Swachh Bharat mission: CII

Green chemistry, which aims to produce eco-friendly chemicals through sustainable means with minimal waste & optimum output, has the potential to give a big push to the Government’s Swachh Bharat mission and other sustainable development goals. “Several trends are combining to push green principles to the fore of business strategy – advances in biotechnology are bringing new scientific horizons within reach. At a national level, green chemistry has a role to play in making India globally competitive and execution of the Make in India and Swachh Bharat (Clean India) campaigns,” said Nadir Godrej, Chairman CII National Committee Chemicals and managing director, Godrej Industries Ltd, during a conference on ‘New trends in green chemistry’ organised by CII in Mumbai on February 18, 2015.
 
“The clean Ganga project is one example where the chemicals industry can contribute vastly. Modern technologies and water treatment chemicals can offer cost effective, long-term solution to wastewater problem in India. By adopting green chemistry principles, chemical industry can improve not just productivity, but also solve the problem of effluent discharge,” said G D Yadav, vice chancellor, Institute of Chemical Technology. 
 
With government’s thrust in manufacturing sector, experts believe chemical and allied industries have a very critical role to play in making the initiative sustainable and environmentally viable. “The industry must collaborate with government and academicians to not only regulate the pollution levels but also reduce procurement and inventory costs, achieve optimisation in production costs and ‘atom economy’,” said Godrej.
 
Surjit Chaudhary, Secretary, Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Government of India, urged the industry to adopt green processes to make products that will not have harmful effect on the environment.  He added, “Green chemistry is about promoting innovative initiatives to reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and incentivise the development of green products and processes. Strict compliance with regulatory regime for environmental protection and adoption of green technological solutions as well as efficient use of resources appear to be key to the future growth of the industry.”
 
Experts view green chemistry as science-based, non-regulatory and economically driven practice, which is critical to reduce material costs, waste streams and energy usage.
 
Suggesting that innovation roadmap for the chemicals industry must be sector specific, Prof Yadav emphasised on the need for the industry to adopt processes and technologies to meet not just environmental norms, but the set new sustainability benchmark so that the image of the chemical industry is improved in the eyes of common people. He said, “Life cycle assessment of projects are a critical for assessing their viability and sustainability.”