SMEs in Karnataka to be ranked on international environmental safety standards

BANGALORE, INDIA: TUV Rheinland, a leading global provider of Technical, Safety and certification Services today announced the completion of the initial phase of Karnataka’s first PPP initiative for ‘Enhanced Productivity and Sustainable Industrial Ecology among SMEs in the state.

Ten select SMEs will be audited and rated on social, environmental and occupational health and safety as per international standards like Environment Management System (ISO 14001), Occupational Health and Safety (OHSAS 18001) and Social Accountability (SA 8000) on completion of the 14 month programme, enabling them gain global acceptance and recognition.

The unique initiative ‘SHINE’ (Systematic and Holistic programme for a balanced Industrial Ecology) is jointly funded by DEG of Germany, Europe’s largest developmental finance institution and Knowledge firm ECC International along with TUV Rheinland India to create awareness, involve and implement environmental and occupational health and safety standards amongst the SME Segment in Karnataka.

Speaking at a Best practices Exchange Forum held in Bangalore at the end of the first phase where the 10 select SMEs shared their lessons and experiences from the programme with the industry, academia and Government, M.Bhaskar, director, TUV Rheinland said: “Karnataka’s rapid and unsustainable economic growth is posing a serious challenge to the ecological balance of the region and the environment in general. Studies confirm that 51 percent of the state’s highly polluting industries are concentrated in the four districts of Bangalore Urban, Belgaum, Bellary and Mysore.

“These cities account for a huge concentration of small and medium industries, which are losing their competitive edge and are ill equipped to meet increasingly stringent national/international rules and regulations and as a result are in danger of being thrown out of business.

"Our project seeks to achieve increased levels of awareness and adoption of environmental health standards by addressing issues at three key levels- awareness, involvement and implementation. We will organize mass mobilization programmes, create multi stakeholder expert pools to train and build capacity in groups to switch to sustainable industrial production," he added.

Sreenivasan, MD, ECCI, elaborated: “Sustainable industrial production is a systematic and integrated approach towards optimizing the economic, environmental and social impacts of a company’s products, services and processes towards a more sustainable means of production. As a part of the programme, we have also created a comprehensive e-learning kit on international standards and best practices governing industrial production that will be distributed to over 200 enterprises in the state.”