Sustainability is at the heart of Excel Industries: Ashwin C Shroff

Ashwin C Shroff, Chairman & Managing Director, Excel Industries Ltd, one of the leading chemical manufacturers in India, has been a vocal advocate of environment and waste management cause. In this free-wheeling interview with Rakesh Rao, Shroff, who has been at the helms of affairs in various industry associations, expresses his views on sustainability and what it means to Indian chemical industry.

What makes you an ardent supporter of environment?
We always considered ourselves to be an integral part of a society and not just a profit making entity. Which means, in spite of being a commercial organisation, there are lots of other responsibility towards the society that goes along with it. Sustainability has been part of our ethos since the inception of Excel Industries.
 
Kindly brief us about some of the sustainability measures taken by Excel Industries.
Waste generated in chemical industry needs to be treated. If you allow chemical waste to go untreated, then it creates problem. We have set up our own effluent treatment plant to treat chemical waste. The first step in the waste management strategy is to reduce waste generation itself. We have been successful in improving efficiency of our manufacturing processes, thus leading to reduced wastage and effluents. This was achieved by optimising the production processes.
 
There is no process which can give you 100% yield, thus there will always be wastages and by-products. So the second thing that we did is to find ways to recycle and reuse this waste in an optimal manner. One of the possible ways to do this is by using microbial degradation, instead of thermal (which consumes energy) or chemical (which again requires chemicals) degradation. We try to handle waste in an environmentally benign manner without using energy and unnecessary chemicals.
 
Third, we are also working on converting chemical plant’s waste into energy by using anaerobic method.
 
Power prices in India, which is dependent on imports for fossil fuel, have been going up. At Excel, we take adequate measures to make our processes energy efficient, thus saving the precious fuel. As a group, we are also the pioneers to use wind energy in India.
 
Water is another scarce resources in India. We are taking steps to reduce water footprint not just in our company, but also in the society through our association with NGOs which are propagating water management cause in the country.
 
Are Indian chemical companies ready to ride the sustainability bandwagon?
Indian Chemical Council (ICC) is taking number of steps to educate the industry on the importance of environment and reducing & treating effluent. There has been an increase in awareness about Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) in the Indian chemical industry mainly due to two reasons – regulatory compliance and increase in adoption of eco-friendly measures. It is important to know that if companies can improve process efficiency, it can lead to cost savings as they can bring down the cost of waste treatment.
 
How important is the role of top management in driving the sustainability goal of the company?
The top management has to take the lead in driving the sustainability cause. They have to get actively involved and regularly monitor the progress being made on the sustainability front. But, top management alone cannot accomplish the goal. They require support of the employees and NGOs.

(This was featured in Business Standard newspaper on August 30, 2013)