As ‘green’ becomes a key word that is increasingly steering business strategy and profitability of companies in developed nations, Indian companies too are rapidly waking up to the opportunities of going environment friendly. An increasing number of corporates now see reductions in green house gas (GHG) emissions as an important commercial opportunity of the future, and also a key factor that is likely to impact their operations, says a new report. “Of the 39 companies that have taken part in the study, 79 per cent perceive commercial risks arising from climate change,” notes the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Report 2007 India, a joint effort of World Wide Fund India, CII and the Carbon Disclosure Project. The report was released at the Sustainability Summit 2007 Asia here today. The report notes that most responding companies see ‘uncertain regulations’ and ‘physical and operational risks’ as major threats arising from climate change. While regulation to encourage the reporting and reduction of GHG emission is expected, a majority of companies — from sectors like power, oil and natural gas, steel and food products — also said that they expected disruption in resource availability due to climate change. However, a thumping majority (85 per cent) of companies also perceive commercial opportunities around climate change. Opportunities are seen in terms of developing new low carbon products, exploiting Carbon Development Mechanism potential, expanding into carbon finance and introducing energy and material efficiency in operations. “As we foresee that hydro power has a huge potential and at the same time it is a non-polluting source of energy, we are developing the technology and plan to invest more and build such power plants which will be fuelled by renewable energy sources,” the report quotes National Thermal Power Corporation as saying. To manage the emerging opportunities and risks arising out of climate change, most companies (74 per cent) claim to have devised strategies. “We are continuously working on increasing the capacity of our transmission lines by using capacitors wherein we can transfer more power with less number of lines. Transmission lines have been upgraded from 220KV to 400KV,” said Power Grid Corporation of India.
