Green Productivity

Green Productivity was launched in 1994 in line with the 1992 Earth Summit recommendations that both economic development and environmental protection would be key strategies for sustainable development. With the support from the government of Japan the APO (Asian Productivity Organization) introduced GP as a practical way to answer the challenge of sustainable development.

The objective of the APO's GP program is to enhance productivity and simultaneously reduce the negative impacts on the environment. It seeks to realize this objective by propagating GP consciousness. The APO pledges to continue the progress in the Asia-Pacific Region and through cooperation, extend GP to accelerate a growing green global marketplace.

What is GP?

Since the introduction of environmentally sustainable economic development at the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the environmental issue has evolved from being an intellectual pursuit of the few to a core business concern of the mainstream. With the closure of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, more than 178 Governments adopted Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests. The time to move from rhetoric to results arrived. However, it is in the operational meaning of this defined phrase where much debate has ensued. The matter of ecological integrity, as well as social and economic equity, must become the focus of innovation. Just as human systems adopted agriculture and the use of fossil fuel as the first and second transitions that completely changed the way global society operated, the third transition that humans must address is to operationalize sustainability. To be successful we must transform these three factors into meaningful policies, supported by unified social action and show evidence of our success in our respective corporate triple bottom-line results. The APO believes that we have found a track that moves us from the evocative to where we have evidence of results. Here, we offer an introduction to Green Productivity, its history, its methods, tools and techniques. Green Productivity (GP) is a strategy for simultaneously enhancing productivity and environmental performance simultaneously for overall socio-economic development. Its aim is well-rounded socio-economic development that leads to sustained improvement in the quality of human life. It is the combined application of appropriate productivity and environmental management tools, techniques and technologies that reduce the environmental impact of an organization's activities, products and services while enhancing profitability and competitive advantage.

Why GP? Innovation is a primary driver of economic growth. Green Productivity greens the process of innovation. The starting line was productivity as a cost reduction strategy. By picking up the baton of quality, productivity has metamorphosed to incorporate environmental protection and community enhancement as a means to increase prosperity. Under the umbrella of Green Productivity, innovation, a key engine of economic growth, becomes part of a holistic strategy to move towards a sustainable future. Productivity is essentially a marathon without a finishing line. Just as productivity was the essential strategy that enabled Japan to rebuild after the Second World War, with other Asian nations being attracted to the lure of its success, the 19 member economies of the Asian Productivity Organization have rallied behind a more broadly defined concept of productivity to race in the marathon for sustainability. In "The Concept of Productivity and the Aim of National Productivity Agencies" formulated in Rome in 1959 the Productivity Committee of the European Productivity Agency defined productivity as follows: "Productivity is above all a state of mind. It is an attitude that seeks the continuous improvement of what exists. It is a conviction that one can do better today than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better than today. Furthermore it requires constant efforts to adapt economic activities to ever-changing conditions and the application of new theories and methods. It is a firm belief in the progress of humanity." Green Productivity starts with an intellectual dare – to shift from a monochrome bottom line to a more colorful triple bottom line What makes Green Productivity so Attractive? Previous approaches to environmental protection have tended to ignore economic performance. Regulators were tasked with the dubious honour of having to closely monitor those with the deepest pockets and most suspect of the greatest 'wrongdoing' - sparked by the events such as Chernobyl, Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez. This surveillance has led to substantial reductions in single point source pollution in most countries. However it has left the seemingly trivial individual contribution of day-to-day inefficiencies in other larger and smaller enterprises and public organizations unattended. Essentially the practice of Green Productivity results in using material resources and energy more efficiently and sustainably - doing better with less. We know spurring innovation for products and services enhances economic development, therefore greening innovative minds enables development with less risk of socio-economic and environmental degradation. According to the World Economic Forum's Year 2000 Report, the ability of a nation to improve its competitiveness is measured by its environmental performance in addition to more traditional economic criteria. Central to improved competitiveness is productivity. This makes the concept of Green Productivity a simple but elegant solution - to make environmental protection a core business attractor instead of an isolated cost contributor. The recognition that environment and development are two sides of the same coin came in response to the need to link economic development strategies with environmental preservation. Between 1993 and 1994 a number of the APO member economies were involved in research focused on applications and opportunities for cleaner production as the cornerstone for guiding Asian countries towards a more environmentally friendly industrialization. While the tools, techniques and methods have expanded over the last eight years, the goal has remained the same - to balance environmental and economic needs. In doing so we improve the quality of life for society as a whole. This balance is achieved by keeping a focus on Quality (representing the voice of the customer), Profitability (determined by how well you do with what you have - factor inputs) and the Environment (our natural capital). With the start of the new century we see a growing enthusiasm for the power of Green Productivity as a strategic driver for innovation. In this new Millennium, Green Productivity will help Asia and we hope others to innovate a sustainable future. Green Productivity for Sustainable Energy and Environment in India: Need of the Hour The process of Industrial growth plays a vital role in economic development, but any Industrial growth seems to go hand-in-hand with environmental deterioration. Several decades of applying the conventional methods to reduce environmental damage has proved to be just treating the symptoms, the world is suffering from disease of environmental damage and a fear of getting it chronic is a possibility. It is high time to combine technological solutions to overcome urgent pollution problems with ways to prevent wastes from being generated or to reuse their valuable material. We, in India, are mindful of this growing problem and have started interventions in form of awareness and practical solutions to reduce the impact of environmental degradation. To reinforce this belief, National Productivity Council, under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, is celebrating Productivity Week from 12th to 18th February, 2011 with a theme ‘Green Productivity for Sustainable Energy and Environment’. The Productivity Week will revolve around the core concept of ‘Green Productivity (GP)’. A New Paradigm Green Productivity is a new paradigm in sustainable manufacturing where resource conservation and waste minimization constitute the strategy in simultaneously enhancing environmental performance and productivity. This productivity approach to the sustainability of industries requires the adoption of clean production technology and the development of appropriate indicators and instruments to measure environmental performance in a continuous improvement strategy that focuses on the manufacturing stage of the product life cycle. The analysis may be expanded to include the entire life cycle with increasing details on impacts, improvement strategies and indicators. Green Productivity is the well-rounded socio-economic development that emphasizes on sustainable improvement in the quality of human life with minimum or no damage to the environment. It is the combined application of appropriate productivity and environmental management tools, techniques and technologies that reduce the environmental impact of an organization’s activities, products and services while enhancing profitability and competitive advantage. Green Growth Dynamism The thrust of the productivity week is to focus on generating awareness on the eco-efficiency considerations and energy efficiency perspectives, which will be supported by principles of ecological economics and impinged by equations of eco-financing and investments and returns cycles. Strategic action by firms and stakeholders including consumers are increasingly focused on eco-design initiatives including product improvement, product–redesign. The aim is to explore future scope in harvesting green consumerism and green growth dynamics and emergence of eco-cities and eco-industrial parks that would foster an eco-culture across boundaries on our planet. Green Productivity as a principle and strategy has gained wider understanding, stronger support and eventually being applied for enhancing productivity and environmental performance for sustainable socio-economic development. Exploitation of non-renewable energy sources on one hand resulted in depleting the natural energy reservoirs while on the other hand, due to excessive and imbalanced use, it made the world face one of the toughest challenges, Global Warming. Rise in sea levels, fluctuations in the rainfall and frequent droughts are some of the impacts of the environmental damage. All these concerns made us introspect on the situation and this led to the incubation of the concept of Green Productivity for sustainable development. Substantial Gains Traditional focus of the productivity was to ensure cost-effectiveness through cost reduction, the quality drive and the customer satisfaction. Now, along with these, productivity improvement programs are also required to integrate environment issues. GP helps company increase its productivity and it is applicable not only to manufacturing, but also to the service, information, and agricultural sectors, more so to government and community economic development. By picking up the baton of quality, productivity has metamorphosed to incorporate environmental protection and community enhancement as a means to increase prosperity. The challenges of shifting to a pathway of sustainable development embracing the energy & environmental issues are substantial. Improvements in energy management and pollution-reduction technologies will offset some of the problems associated with projected future growth in population. Therefore, Green productivity was launched with the prime objectives to address the issues of increasing profitability, improvement in health and safety, making quality products, promotion of environmental protection, regulatory compliance, building up company’s image and raise employees morale which will subsequently lead to holistic growth and development. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Nature is enough to satisfy man’s need but not sufficient for man’s greed.” In this fierce race of globalization, countries of the world have lost the faculty to decipher the difference between need and greed. They are rapidly being trapped into the sands of materialism and thus failing to draw the line. This blurred distinction has consequently resulted boom to the consumerist concept leading to the crude display of extravagance and has thus ushered mindless production of goods and services. Productivity and competitiveness are the two faces of a same coin. Competitiveness of a nation is linked to the productivity growth and ability of a nation to improve its competitiveness is measured by its environmental performance in addition to more traditional economic criteria. This makes the concept of Green Productivity a simple but elegant solution - to make environmental protection a core business principle instead of an isolated cost element. “Green Productivity for sustainable Energy and Environment” as a chosen theme for the ‘Productivity Week-20ll is the need of the hour.