Shall we compromise on growth to achieve green India?

I would agree with Anup's views and disagree that we need to sacrifice growth if we want to go  green.  Instead if we should take this oppurtunity and build systems, solutions, infrastructures such that they adopt and promote green revolution.  this perhaps is the best time to do that.   Otherwise we will also be like the US and other developed countries where they used the non renewable sources to the extent that we have this problem.  they also thought of development first and nature was kept secondary.  and if we follow the same path then we may not even have anybody to enjoy the developments in future !!

And at last I would rather say that if we promote green developments it will only increase our productivity and not reduce it and even if it does it will be temporal.

Dear Deepak:

We don't need to sacrifice or compromise growth / development, but look at what real growth / development is ...

Look at my ideas here on dates 2nd, 3rd and 4th Feb 2009                 (http://green.ndtv.com/commentlistings.aspx?sb=yes&&stid=3)

Sustainable development, real action in environment up-gradation..

Benefits Galore (enormous)

* Better quality of life for all according to merit

* Overall balanced growth & holistic growth

* Shared and sustained growth

* Minimal pollution and environmental damage

* Cleaner and greener development, business & manufacturing processes

* new options for transfer of purchasing power from those who are impacting natural resources to those who are conserving them...>>>

* business opportunity, because it creates value with minimal impact and least effort in tune with nature...

* sustainability makes market work for the poor, „improves the quality of life“, enhances natural capital resources and creates sustained and shared growth...>>>

* the business agenda for sustainability is substantiated by the enormous reduction in the consumption of natural resources, reduction in the impact on nature and providing new cleaner products and services...  

There is need to focus on overall, holistic and larger & balanced growth of organization which serves its higher purpose of social, business, nature-ecological-environment and sustainable development which are more lasting, permanent and the roots grow more & more strong leading to more and more fruitful growth of the organization !

CEOs often give little importance to values and culture .... This is very true as most of my past 30 years of experience corroborates the same and here comes the challenge. Although, I have already tried in the past without much success, the values and culture, there is need to promote :

a)      Excellent Performance culture

b)      Creativity culture, which I found sadly & abysmally non-existent (and I suffered greatly because of the same)

c)      Sustainable development culture which includes socio-cultural and environmental concerns and responsibilities

d)      Quality & process concerns for better and better quality of products, Health, training, motivation, individually focused problem resolution of each working member of the organization including MD, chairman to helper worker. This will help in building trust and developing a culture of trusteeship, where every worker is trustee as well as part - owner

Not at all, its an emergency situation now. Environment is getting effected badly. If now we don't become concerned, it will be too late. There cannot be any compromise for the benefit of our environment...

Green India is a step taken to make country and our environment safe & better for people to live a better life....

India is growing faster than any other country in the world and we should know that it is not only the growth by which makes a country prosper. If the country which is growing fastest every year but doesn't have a healthy environment for its population to live, there is no use of such growth. For whom and what the country is growing should be the first priority to the country. There should be a proper balance between both of them. But in case there comes a time for sacrificing one of them is needed to be done due to scarcity of resources or environment affectedness, i think that growth to smaller extent should be compromised with.

Because it the health of the country which will a country to lead towards growth...

We have to give equal importance to green and growth, as we say SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT...

All i want to say is there are many options which are available wherein, the green can be achieved with sacrificing the growth... 

The foremost objective India must pursue in the forthcoming decades is to provide a humane existence with adequate access to basic amenities such as shelter, water and electricity to all citizens.

300 million Indians still live in abject poverty and 400 million are without access to electricity, achieving this objective requires sustained rapid growth complemented by well-crafted social programmes for some decades to come. The question then is whether such growth is possible without disturbing green India.

We have to realise that to get out of poverty, developing countries have to grow their economies. There is no choice. We must have economic growth that is driven by environmental responsibility as well as social responsibility.

We have to grow the economy and we have to do it in an environmentally sound manner.