Lecture 6: 29 March 2014

We started with a recap of the ISO-14001 EMS that we had studied so far, i.e. Policy, Plan and Do sections. In this class we discussed the "Check", 4.5,and "Act",4.6,parts of the System.

4.5. Once we plan and implement the EMS, the next step is to CHECK if what we have done is right and is yielding desired results. There are Five sub-sections under Checking, viz., 
4.5.1 - Monitoring and Measurement, 
4.5.2 - Evaluating Compliance (4.5.2.1 - Evaluation of Legal Compliance and 4.5.2.2 - Evaluation of other compliance), 
4.5.3 - Non-conformity, corrective action and preventive action, 4.5.4 - Control of Records and 
4.5.5 - Internal Audits

4.5.1 All environmental management programmes have to be monitored; where required measurements have to be made to provide identified performance indicators.  Monitoring also includes monitoring of various operational control parameters and various performance indicators (including regulatory requirements).  Equipment used for such measurements have to be calibrated and the calibration records have to be maintained.

4.5.2 - Procedures have to be established and implemented to periodically evaluate compliance with legal requirements (4.5.2.1) as well as with other requirements (4.5.2.2) to which the organization subscribes. The results of these evaluation have to be documented. In case of non-conformance, corrective and preventive actions have to be in place.

4.5.3 - Once a non-conformance to any element of the system requirements is noticed, corrective and preventive actions have to be taken to eliminate or avoid the recurrence of the non-conformance. A corrective action is the removal of the cause of non-conformance identified so that the non-conformance does not recur. The preventive actions is the change effected to the system to avoid the potential non-conformance. Preventive action is, therefore, a proactive action.

4.5.4 - In order to provide evidence that the system is working the orgnization should maintain records like the training record, record of audits and minutes of the Management Review etc. The organization decides as to which of the records are required to demonstrate the working of the environmental management system.

4.5.5 - Internal audits are carried out to evaluate the working of the EMS. Internal audits may be carried out by competent persons from within the orgnization or by those working outside the organization. An EMS audit is a systematic process of objectively collecting audit evidence against audit criteria, evaluate the audit evidence, to conclude if there is sufficient evidence to show if the EMS audit criteria are met and to report to the client the conclusion of the findings. EMS internal audits have to be carried out according to ISO-19011: Guidelines for Quality and/or Environmental Management System Auditing.

4.6 Once the elements of Checking have been established and implemented, the next step to go for the Management Review. The management review addresses issues like a) results of internal audits and evaluations of compliance with legal requirements and with other requirements to which the organization subscribes, b) communication(s) from external interested parties, including complaints, c) the environmental performance of the organization, d) the extent to which objectives and targets have been met, e) status of corrective and preventive actions, f) follow-up actions from previous management reviews, g) changing circumstances, including developments in legal and other requirements related to its environmental aspects, and
h) recommendations for improvement.

The output of the management review includes, decisions and actions related to the possible changes to environmental policy, objectives, targets and other elements of the environmental management system, consistent with the commitment to continual improvement. The discussions and decisions taken at the Management Review are minuted.

Thus the Management Review completes one PDCA cycle of the EMS and triggers off the next PDCA Cycle for improving the organization's environmental performance.

An established ISO-14001 Environmental Management System, which has gone through at least one PDCA cycle,  is ready for certification by external certification agencies.

The other management systems like OHSAS 18001 and SA 8000 can be understood if you understand how ISO-14001 Environmental Management system works

The standard  OHSAS 18001 (2007) was issued first in 1999 and revised in 2007. The revision is mostly to emphasise the "Health" aspect of OH & S and align with ISO-14001. The standard, again, is based on PDCA. The standard helps the organization to improve its Occupational Health & Safety performance in a systematic way.

Occupational Health and Safety issues can arise from various causes like: (a) moving (e.g. circular, linear or angular) machine parts, (b) use of transportation mechanisms like lifts, tackles etc., (c) use of electricity, (d) use of chemical substances (e.g. toxic, inflammable, corrosives, explosives etc), (e) plant layout, (f) Light levels, (g) sound levels, (h) ergonomics, (j) falling objects, (k) working at heights, (l) radiation (e.g. ultraviolet, nuclear), (m) working in hot areas, (n) working with compressed gases etc.

Legal requirements related to OH & S are available in (a) Factories Act (and the Maharashtra Factories Rules, (b) Petroleum Act (and Petroleum Rules), (c) Explosives Act (and Explosives Rules), (d) Gas Cylinders Rules, (e) Static and Mobile Pressure Vessel Rules etc.

Once significant hazards and legal requirements are identified programmes, procedures, training etc., can be initiated to improve the OH & S performance. Checking and Acting Phases are similar to ISO-14001.

The OHSAS 18001 Management System established by an organization can be certified by external certification agencies (similar to ISO-9001 and ISO-14001)

SA 8000 focusses on (a) Child Labour (Child Labour is defined in India as those whose age is less than 14 years) (b) Forced Labour, (c) Collective Bargaining, (d) Occupational Health and Safety, (e) working hours and holidays, (f) wages etc. 

Organizations can establish a SA 8000 management system and get it certified by external certification agencies.

In the second part of the lecture we summarized the learning from the paper: Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy.  This paper describes as to "where" to spend the money available for philanthropy and "how" to select and enhance the effectiveness of NGOs who are intermediates between the donors and donees. 

Lecture 5: 22 March 2014

I started the lecture with a recap of what we had learnt about ISO-14001;  we discussed various elements of an environmental policy and the elements of planning like aspects and impacts, legal and other requirements and objectives, targets and programmes.  We moved on to discuss  various elements of the "implementation" or "DO" part of the Environmental Management System.  This section has 7 sub-sections.  We discussed each one of this briefly.

4.4.1 - Resources are to be provided by the management for establishing, implementing and maintaining the Environmental Management System - these resources are human resources, financial resources, infrastructure and information. The top management has to appoint a Management Representative to establish, implement and maintain an Environmental Management System and to report to the management periodically about the effectiveness of the system.

Role is the part played by employees apart from the functions for which they are responsible or results for which they are accountable to. An employee, for example an Accounts Officer, may take the role of an internal auditor or a trainer even though his main responsibility is in Accounting. ( We discussed the ROLE played by individual in real life - a man is a husband to his wife, is a brother to his sister or brother, is a son to his parents, is a friend to his friends etc. These are various roles he plays in his life).

In order to ensure that the system is effective the management should document the responsibilities and authority (to take actions, decisions etc.) and make it known to all concerned employees.

4.4.2 - Competence of employees who are responsible for activities related to identified significant aspects need to be ensured; competence is related to qualification, training and experience.

ALL employees have to be trained to understand the policy, procedures and other relevant elements of the EMS. ALL is the key word here.

Employees who are responsible for activities that have potential significant impacts have to be competent in terms of education, experience and training to carry out that function.

4.4.3 - Communication is of two types,

(a) internal communication with employees and contract workers working within the premises and
(b) external communication with stakeholders outside the organization, like the Government Departments, Statutory bodies, NGOs, Banks, Neighbours etc.

Procedure for both internal and external communication should be effective (e.g. the internal communication should ensure that the recipient of the communication has understood the content of the communication). The procedure for external communication should address the receipt and response to communication from external stakeholders. The organization should decide whether to communicate its significant environmental aspects to external stakeholders and record its decision.

One method of external communication is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guideline based Sustainability Reports.

4.4.4 - Documentation - Information with its supporting medium (paper, magnetic tape, CD, DVD etc.) is a document; Records are a sub-set of documents.

Procedures, Policy, Objectives/targets/programmes etc., with the medium on which they are captured are documents. Information on the past activity, including measurements, reviews etc., are RECORDS. While documents, except RECORDS, could be changed, RECORDS cannot be changed/altered.

Documents, including Records, are used as evidence of the working of the Environmental Management System. Environmental Management System Manual, capturing various elements of the EMS is one such document (ISO-14001 does not prescribe a written manual, but for better working of the system a written manual is recommended)

4.4.5 - Documents are controlled; that means that the documents are checked for their authenticity and are verified and approved by those authorized to issue documents.

This procedure is necessary to avoid obsolete documents being used in the organization. Current documents need to be available at the all places where related work is carried out.

Control is also required for documents which have external origin (e.g. standards, legal documents etc).

4.4.6 - We discussed issues related to operational control procedures that are established to address significant environmental aspects, Procedures have to established for those activities which can cause environmental impact. These procedures identify the scope, responsibility, and the "how" of doing things.

These procedures also apply to contractors and suppliers where relevant. Procedures need not be just a summary of what has to be done; they can also presented in the form of flow-charts for clarity. Procedures should also identify the "operational Criteria" - operational criterion is that indicator which provides information for action that reduces the environmental impact.

4.4.7 - We discussed issues related to emergency/accident procedures and the consequence of the procedure. Incidents are indications of what is expected in days to come. Accidents and their analysis for prevention will help an organization Environmental emergency situations are those where the surrounding populations have to be evacuated or the emissions/discharges can pollute the ground water around.. One needs to take precautions while using emergency measures; they should not lead to other environmental issues

Lecture 4 : 15 March 2014

We started the class by recapitulating the concept of CSR that we have studied so far.  What we studied so far is about "what" is CSR or Sustainability.

Now we have to move to "how" of CSR/Sustainability.

The syllabus covers ISO-14001, OHSAS - 18001, SA 8000, AA-1000, Global Compact, ISO 26000 etc.

I explained to you that  a  system based on Plan-Do-Check-Act  (PDCA) cycle is suggested for ISO-14001 and OHSAS 18001; most of the activities (especially improvement activities) can be explained in terms of PDCA (also called Deming's cycle). I explained to you how a simple activity of  attending the class has inherently all the elements of PDCA.

We agreed that we will study one of  these standards a little in depth and the others not in detail.

We also agreed that we will study ISO-14001 (2004) in details.

Sections 4.2 to 4.6 are the operative parts of the standard ISO-14001: Environmental Management Systems: requirements with guidance for use.

Section 4.2 is about the Environmental Policy.

I explained to you that Policy is the statement of intent of the organization and that subjects that have potential to cause risk to the organization are covered through policies.

Section 4.2 of ISO-14001 requires that the Environmental Policy is appropriate to nature of the business of the organization and the policy

a) is issued by the top management
b) shall commit the organization to prevent pollution
c) shall commit the organization to comply with applicable legal and other requirements
d) shall commit the organization to continual improvement
e) shall provide a framework for setting and reviewing objectives
f) is documented (we will discuss what is documentation later)
g) is communicated to employees and others like contractors and suppliers
h) is available publicly

I explained to you various terms like "top management","prevention of pollution" "continual improvement", "other requirements", "framework", "communication", and "available publicly".  To recap:

Top Management : Person or persons who has the ultimate control of and responsibility for the organization
Prevention of Pollution: Prevention includes reduction of pollution; i.e. reduce or prevent pollution through different means/techniques
Continual Improvement:  Improvement of the overall environmental management system brought out by improvements in various sections of the organization's activities, products and services
Other requirements: Requirements, which are beyond legal requirements, that include requirements of customers, stakeholders, industry associations etc.
Framework: A system of procedures and processes that helps to address specific issues
Communication: A process of transmission of information,confirming that the transmitted information has reached the desired audience and that they have understood the information (a two way process)
Available Publicly: The document is not a restricted document, but is available to anyone who would like to have access to it.

I have shown to you as to how to write a simple ISO-14001 compliant Environmental Policy:

(Example of a simple Environmental Policy)

"ABC Company Limited is involved in the manufacture and sale of .....................

Our environmental policy which is applicable to all employees of the company as well as those working for or on behalf of the company is as follows.

We commit ourselves
1.  to prevent pollution of air, water and soil
2.  to comply with all applicable environmental  laws and other requirements
3.  to continually improve our environmental performance

We shall establish and maintain an ISO-14001 environmental management system


sd.
(Managing Director)
Date:        

As an exercise you may like to search for environmental policies of various organizations in their web site and study them.

Next we have taken up for discussion section 4.3 which is about Planning.

Planning is the most important part of any systematic activity.  I quoted: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail".
If proper attention is given to details during this phase, the progress of work in the later parts of the system will be effective (i.e. achieve the goal) and efficient (i.e. in time with the least available resources).

Section 4.3.1 is about Aspects and Impacts, their identification and evaluation.  An Impact is a change in the physical environment (air, water, soil etc., including flora, fauna, called receptors) that is caused (or likely to be caused) by the activity, product or a service of the organization.  An  Aspect is that element of the activity, product or a service, that causes that impact.  For example, when you drive your vehicle there is an emission from your exhaust pipe which pollutes (changes the characteristics of) the air around.  Here "Driving the Vehicle" is the activity.  "Emissions from the exhaust" is the Aspect.  "Air Pollution" is the Impact.  Thus there is a "Cause" and "Effect" relationship between "Aspect" and "Impact".  We can identify "Aspects" and "Impacts" for products too.  For example, take a refrigerator.  The design of the refrigerator determines its energy consumption, which in turn determines its contribution "Green House Gas" emission at the thermal power plant.  In this case, Refrigerator is the Product.  Green House Gas emission is the Aspect.  Global warming is the impact.

It is important to understand that we study aspects and impacts of those activities, products and services on which the organization has control or which it can influence.

Once ALL the aspects and impacts have been identified, it is necessary that they are evaluated for their significance.  This is required because such an evaluation helps the organization to identify those aspects that are "significant" and act on them.  For this class, it is not necessary to go into the details of assessment of aspects; what should be understood is that methods are available for identifying significant aspects and these significant aspects are important in establishing and maintaining an EMS.

It is also required that the organization identifies the link between significant impacts and "legal and other requirements".  For example, if the organization has identified emissions from a process to be a significant aspect and air pollution arising out of it as significant impact, it is expected that it links the impact to requirements of, say, Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act (with respect to emission standards).

Section 4.3.2 is about identifying and accessing the legal and other requirements.  In India most of the applicable environmental  legal requirements are available at: www.moef.nic.in.  Other applicable legal requirements (such as Explosives Act, Motor Vehicle Act, Petroleum Act, RoHS, WEEE,  etc., ) have to be identified based on the significant impacts identified in section 4.3.1.  It is not enough if the organization identifies these requirements, they also should know as to how to access them.  These have to be documented.

4.3.3 is about setting objectives, targets and establishing programmes to meet the objectives/targets.  This section is an important section in planning.  Objectives (long term goals) have to be arrived at by considering the Environmental Policy, significant aspects, resources (money, man power, technology) available and legal and other requirements.  For example based on the evaluation of aspects, the organization may identify "discharge of substance A to water" as a significant aspect.  The Environmental Policy commits the organization to "prevent pollution".  The organization may set an objective of "Zero discharge of substance A" to water in four years as the objective, based on information on technologies available, funding available and man-power available.  Targets (short term  goals) can then be set to achieve them with the available resources.  For example, in the above case, the immediate target for the next year can be "reduction of discharge of A into effluent by 20 % by improving process parameters".  Both Objectives and Targets have to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant,Time bound).

Once Objectives and Targets have been identified the organization should establish Environmental Management Programmes (EMP) to achieve these goals.  The programme should have the following characteristcs: What has to be achieved (objective) ?    What is the time frame to achieve the goal ? Who is responsible for what ? What are the resources available/required for the programme ? What are milestones to be monitored ?  What are the key performance indicators for monitoring and reviewing the programme ?

Environmental Management Programme helps the organization to address significant environmental issues so as to avoid risks to the organization;  EMP may also provide new opportunities to the organization, like improving efficiency, reducing waste etc.

We will take up the other sections of ISO - 14001 in the next class.

CSR Class on 08 March 2014 - I will not be able to take this class

Dear Friends,

I will not be able to take the CSR class on 08 March, 2014.  Please bear with me.

Please inform other students too.

Kind regards,

Ramakrishnan

Lecture 3 - 01 March 2014

We started the class with a discussion on the Tutorial  (given in the earlier post).

We recalled the three functions of the environment, three characteristics of the environment that cause potential conflicts and the three conflict resolution techniques.

I explained to you that environmental issues for business arise through out the life cycle of a product.  Like human beings, products also have a life-cycle and they follow almost the same pattern of events.  For example, human beings are conceived, delivered, age (i.e. used / put to use), and at the end-of-life sent to a crematorium or a burial ground; some donate their body parts after their death.  Similarly products are designed, manufactured and sold, used and at the end-of-life either land-filled or incinerated; some products are so designed that their parts can be recycled, reused or re-manufactured.  The last option is possible only when these features are in-built in the product during the design of the product.  Such a design which takes care of environmental performance while at the same time makes the product economically attractive is called Eco-design.  As you are aware, manufacturing results in emissions and discharges and generation of solid and hazardous wastes.  The extent to which resources are used in manufacturing, pollutants are emitted or discharged and  wastes are generated can be guided by the design of the product and its manufacturing; eco-design helps to reduce emissions, discharges, generation of wastes etc., during the manufacturing; it also helps to avoid toxic substances in the product and processes.  It helps to improve energy efficiency of products and to reduce the mass of the product continuously.  Such improved performance of products lead to improved environmental performance throughout the life-cycle.  Eco-design also aims at reducing packaging mass and eliminating toxic materials  (e.g. PVC blister packing) from packaging. Design for dis-assembly (a concept used in eco-design) ensures that products at the end-of-life can be easily dismantled and components are amenable to recycling and reuse.

We discussed as to how the conflict situations arising out of the characteristics of environment, viz., common property, multiple use, un-covered cost can be seen arising out of the use of  products like the cell-phone (other examples are cars, cigarettes, music systems, public address systems)

After a short discussion on life-cycle environmental impacts of products, we discussed various protocols related to social issues.  They relate to labour issues (ILO declaration on fundamental principles and rights at workplace ), human rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) related to wages, working conditions and corruption (UN Convention against Corruption).  I explained to you that the Companies Act 2013, Schedule VII activities cover almost all the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) of the UN.

We have been studying and discussing the paper "Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy" by ME Porter and MR Kramer, Harvard Business Review, December 2002, in our last two classes; we agreed that the next tutorial is about "Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy" based on this paper.  For the second tutorial you may start preparing now; you have to prepare one A-4 sheet write-up on the topic. You may refer to the material available in the above referred paper or from any other source.  You should be able to support or reject the hypothesis that Corporate Philanthropy can be advantageous to a company.  I shall inform you the date for submission of this tutorial later.

Tutorial 1

This is the first tutorial for  the CSR class 2014.

I explained to you the details of Schedule (VII) of the Companies Act 2013.  There are ten activities identified in the Schedule that can be taken up for CSR activities by companies.

I have asked each one of you (not in a team/group) to propose 5 CSR projects falling within the Schedule VII activities for a company which has to spend Rs.10 crores in the financial year 2014 -2015 (i.e.year starting from 1 April 2014).  Your proposal should clearly explain the project and its specific details with the budget requirement.  Your tutorial should be presented in not more than one A-4 size sheet. You should submit your completed tutorial paper to your course coordinator, preferably as a soft copy before Saturday, 08 March 2014.  Please note that marks will be deducted if the tutorial submission crosses one A-4 size sheet; marks will also be deducted if "copying" or "team work" is inferred by the teacher.


An extract of Schedule VII is given below.  These are activities that can be included in the CSR policies of companies.

i) eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting preventive health care and sanitation and making available safe drinking water

ii) promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocational skills especially among children, women, elderly, and the differently abled and livelihood enhancing projects

iii) promoting gender equality, empowering women, setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans, setting up old age homes, day care centres and such other facilities for senior citizens and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups

iv) ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agro-forestry, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water

v) protection of national heritage, are and culture including restoration of buildings and sites of historical importance and works of art; setting up public libraries; promotion and development of traditional arts and handicrafts

vi) measures for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents

vii) training to promote rural sports, nationally recognized sports, para-olympic sports and Olympic sports

viii) contribution to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund or any other fund set up by the Central Government for socio-economic development and relief and welfare of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, minorities and women

ix) contributions or funds provided to technology incubators located within academic institutions which are approved by the Central Government

x) rural development projects

Lecture 2 on 22 February 2014: Introduction to Environmental Management

We started the class with a recap of the discussion in the first lecture.

We recalled that CSR is no more a voluntary activity in India; as per the Companies Act, 2013, CSR is mandatory for certain types of companies.  We also recalled that CSR has come a long way from purely a philanthropic activity to a strategic management process focusing on economic, environmental and social performance of the company. As understood today CSR is also understood as "Sustainability".  We identified many issues that arise at the interface between the company and its stakeholders and defined Sustainability as the process of managing the interface between the company and the stakeholder in order to ensure long term survival of the organization.

We agreed to discuss the environmental, economic and social issues one after another.  I explained to you that environmental management (& sustainability) is about thinking differently from  the business as usual approaches.  We discussed the new meaning of pollution: the resource at the wrong place.  We also recognized that "environmental issues" provide us business opportunities.  At this point we closed the first lecture.

I explained to you the link between business and the physical environment.  The three main functions of environment are:

1. The physical environment or nature, i.e. air, water, soil, flora, fauna etc., that surround us, provides the resources required for business; these resources may be "renewable" or "non-renewable.  Examples of renewable resources are air and water.  These resources can be renewed (or got back) if we work within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem.  Non-renewable resources, like minerals, petroleum products, coal etc., are lost once we use them; they cannot be got back in the form in which we used them.  By converting  these resources into products or services, business organizations engage in business.

2. The physical environment also acts as a sink for the waste generated by business. The waste is generated in the form of effluents, emissions, solid and hazardous wastes etc.  All these finally reach the physical environment (in air, water or soil).  Waste is not only generated during manufacturing, it is also generated throughout the life-cycle of a product or a service.  For example, at the end-of-life of the product, it becomes a waste and finally reaches the physical environment in one form or the other (e.g land fill , incineration). 

3. The physical environment  provides the amenity value, which business uses for its economic activities. Amenity value is related to the natural beauty that attracts people to a place or area due to its pleasant, aesthetic and cultural characteristics. 

While one cannot imagine any business without the contribution of the physical environment, the very characteristics of the physical environment may cause conflicts between the business and its stakeholders.

There are three main characteristics of the physical environment that contribute to the potential conflict between the business and the stakeholder.

1. Common Property: The very fact that air, water, soil, flora and fauna belong to the whole humanity and not to any individuals or groups make it a potential cause for conflict between business and its stakeholders.  When something belongs to everybody, everybody thinks that someone else will take care of the property.  We see this in our day-to-day life in the misuse of roads, common areas etc.  No one takes ownership of such common properties.  Business especially is vulnerable when stakeholders believe that the common property is misused by the business.  Many  of the disputes relating to large development projects (e.g. nuclear projects, ports, river valley projects etc.) may be attributed to the way common properties are used or perceived to be used by different stakeholders.

2. Multiple Use: The elements that form the physical environment have multiple uses.  For example, water is used for irrigation, horticulture, transportation, sports, cleaning, cooking, drinking, as a solvent, as a source for steam etc.  Different stakeholders have different use of the same element of the physical environment. When the resource is scarce and there are many stakeholders requiring the same for different uses, a conflict situation arises.  For example, if water is scarce, there is a potential for conflict between a manufacturing industry requiring plenty of water (e.g. paper and pulp) for its processes  and the villagers who require the water for irrigation and their day-to-day life.

3. Uncovered Cost: The third characteristics of the environment is the "Uncovered Cost". I asked the students to tell me as to how they would calculate the cost of their travel to IndSearch from their house.  The answer was typical: they would include the cost of petrol, cost of their time, cost of repairs and maintenance, cost of insurance, depreciation and interest etc.  But the cost of someone getting ill because of the emission of pollutants from their vehicle, someone taking leave because of illness caused by vehicular pollution, loss of productivity due to systems affected by vehicular pollution etc., are not included in the cost calculation.  In fact, this cost is distributed among the society.  That is the cost of pollution due to travel (externality)  which has not been internalized.  I gave you an estimate of about US $ 2,200,000,000,000,000 as the uncovered cost of the environmental damage caused by the 3000 largest corporations of the world in a year.  This amount is much higher than the GDP of many countries.  When such un-accounted damage is caused to the environment there is always a likelihood of conflict

Any society would like to avoid conflicts for development/ progress.  Societies use three different methods to avoid conflicts: a. Command and Control, b. Economic instruments and c. voluntary initiatives.

1. Command and Control refers to the acts, rules and regulations that are enacted or published by the Government. This can be from the National Government (in our case Governmet of India) such as the Environment (Protection) Act, Water (Prevention and Control of  Pollution) Act, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, Hazardous Waste (Management & Handling) Rules etc.  Some of the rules may be published by the State Government.  For example, Maharastra Motor Vehicles Rules, Maharashtra Factories Rules etc.  Still more such command and control measures can come from the Municipalities, such as the Municipal Rules requiring housing societies to segregate waste into wet and dry waste and to have vermicompost pits for wet waste.

Command and Control is also applied by the international community.  For example, Kyoto protocol requires countries to cut down on their greenhouse gas emissions; some countries can get carbon credits for their GHG emissions reductions (CDM).  The Montreal Protocol is about the elimination of the use of chlorofluoro carbons (CFCs) which were responsible for reducing the ozone layer in the stratosphere; this ozone layer effectively blocked the ultraviolet radiation from the SUN from reaching the earth.  We have many such international conventions like the Basel Convention, dealing with trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste.

Command and Control measures are also used by countries to restrict the entry of products having certain characteristics from other countries. For example, the EU has Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), which requires that any product that is exported to Europe does not contain substances like cadmium, lead, mercury, chromium (VI), polybromobiphenlys, polybromobiphenylethers. polychlorobiphenyls etc. (there are exemptions to this general rule).  Similarly the WEEE directive (Waste Electric and Electronics Equipment Directive) requires exporters to be responsible for taking back the product once the useful life of the product is over.  There are such rules/directives on energy use, asbestos, pentachlorophenol , packaging etc., throughout the world.

Such command and control measures help countries to have a control over the emissions and discharges and use of resources by business organizations in that country without  causing the businesses excessive cost.  Sometimes these rules are used as "non-tariff" trade barrier in the post WTO free trade regime, even though WTO is against such a practice.

2. Economic instruments are used generally influence the way people and organizations behave.  By providing tax concessions and cess reductions companies are encouraged to spend money on environmental technologies and improving environmental performance.  Some of the other economic instruments are a. Deposit - Refund system (returning of soft drink cans and get an amount in return), b. Emission trading (e.g. instead of spending money in control measures and becoming economically unviable, Government may allow businesses to purchase emission points from low emissions organization and maintain the overall concentration in the ecosystem within the allowed limit), etc.  Another economic instrument is Preferential Purchase, where the Government or a private company insists on purchasing products from a company whose environmental performance is good or its product is environmentally sound. Concessional interest rate is another economic instrument used by banks for environmentally sound investments.

3. While the business organization does not have control over command and control measures and the economic instruments in the domain of Government, it can have voluntatry initiatives positioning them above the requirement of the Government in terms of compliance and policy.  One such initiative is the establishment of ISO-14001, Environmental Management System.