In the recently held Green Goa Summit by Vibrant Goa Foundation, I witnessed leading representations across various sectors discussing green practices, circular economy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) roadmap for Goa. The SDGs applicable to Green Goa are SDG 7 – Affordable and clean energy, SDG 8 – Decent work and economic growth, SDG 9 – Industry, innovation and infrastructure and SDG 12 – Sustainable consumption and production.
Green practices for Goa
An eminent panellist elaborated about the initiatives undertaken by his company such as water harvesting using rainwater, and having a paperless office. The company examined its processes to ensure waste reduction, relooked at new technology to replace fossil fuels with biomass energy from plants such as soya, ground nut shells and reused waste wherever possible, enabling circular economy. The company also managed to reduce water consumption by 36%, to recycle packaging materials, and to set up solar rooftop energy panels generating 1.3 billion units thus harnessing renewable energy. The company also talked about adopting dense forest technique which is called as the Miyawaki Method – essentially a tree planting technique developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki – where trees are planted at high densities with multiple species to mimic a natural forest. The company worked to make its infrastructure lean; with the existing 64000 trees on site and additionally having planted 30000 more – 15000 using the dense forest technique.
Taj group of hotels enumerated how they are adopting eco-friendly measures under the ‘Paathya initiative’ that includes amongst others, 100% elimination of single use plastics and ensuring reuse of 100% wastewater. They first set sustainability targets and then work towards achieving them. Today’s traveller is informed and environment conscious, striving to make Planet Earth a better place for the future generation; hence the hospitality sector too needs to embrace the concept.
Circular economy for Goa
Goa was one of the first States who had pushed forth the agenda for a circular economy as promulgated by Niti Ayog. Various stakeholders from tourism, construction, marine, waste as well as civil society and communities were involved in the consultations in a bottom-up approach strategy. This laid the emphasis on the importance of framing not just the government policy, but also on the need to rope in social actors who do a lot of innovation in the economy. A speaker also spelled out the importance of adopting SDG 12 – which talks about ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, which is essential to change our consumption pattern to be more earth-friendly. We also need to re-imagine the way we produce, consume and dispose.
Educational institutions, which are instrumental in creating innovators, must include in their curriculum compulsory subjects on sustainability. Also required are role models in society, who will help to reduce our carbon footprint – like doing away with buying small pouches of single use plastics and adopting reusable, compostable and biodegradable packaging. To become role models, we need to practice green-living in our daily routines. To bring the change, we have to be the change.
Accelerating Goa’s ESG
Goa has, as of date, not released any specific ESG policy framework, but it has taken environmentally conscious steps aligned with SDGs. Goa has two distinct problems; first – no specific ESG policy and second – dearth of experts; some experts though are working in silos who need to be brought together to work collectively. Several large companies have voluntarily adopted ESG policies, but the smaller companies may not have the resources to do so. Earlier it was HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) and now we are looking at ESG as an important constituent of business practices.
Companies must embrace ESG components like using solar power, minimum use of paper and plastics, carbon credits and digitalisation and accelerate the adoption process. Many industries are willing to be compliant, provided they are given a good framework and receive some hand holding and guidance. The government too supports MSMEs in adopting green technologies and has introduced a range of schemes and policies to help their business upscale sustainably.
As far as tourism – one of the biggest business activities in Goa – is concerned, the stakeholders must decide if they want more tourists or more revenue. They must aim at quality tourists and look at Goa beyond beaches – but with an eye on maintaining the socio-ecological nature of the state. Planning is essential through consultative approach keeping the local challenges in mind. ESG policy must not be just another piece of work, but a policy that is implementable at the ground level.
(The writer is Assocham Goa empowerment chair, GCCI managing committee member and Laghu Udyog Bharati Goa executive committee member)
