India MSME Summit 2022: Industry experts on constitutes green management

With people around the world becoming increasingly conscious of their environmental footprint, companies too have started to focus on green management.

Speaking in a panel discussion at the fourth edition of India MSME Summit 2022 organised by YourStory and SMBStory, Dharmesh Shah, Chairman and Managing Director of BDR Pharmaceuticals—the Mumbai-based manufacturer of COVID-19 drug Remdesivir, talked about the importance of green management.

"Green management is a paradigm which includes improving environmental impact using energy resources and eco-friendly technology," he explained. 

“This involves waste and recycling activities—starting from production, packaging, and delivering to the customer. We know that it's a costly affair for MSMEs, but a lot of things can be done that are not very costly affairs and demand continuous screening and implementation of small things which can help,” he added.

Commenting on the same, Amritha Varshini Gaddam, Founder, The Tribe Concepts—an Andhra Pradesh-based sustainable, eco-friendly beauty brand, said, “Green manufacturing, for us, involves everything right from the beginning till the end. We have structured our product—right from the ingredient stage till it reaches the consumer—in such a way that throughout the process, it's a sustainable process.”

Amritha emphasised that the company focuses on green manufacturing which involves eliminating practices that are detrimental to the environment to ensure sustainability. 

The Tribe Concepts offers a line-up of pure, bespoke, and Ayurvedic skin and hair care formulated with vegan and natural ingredients. The founder said she came up with the idea by blending her father's studies of Ayurvedic medicine and her mother's herbal remedies.

“When you want to be sustainable, it is an expensive affair, but that's exactly what makes brands like us differentiate from others because we want to take this step to ensure stability and to promote green manufacturing,” she stated.

But can an organisation successfully implement sustainability?

Dharmesh talked about the concept of three 'R's—reduce, reuse, and recycle the waste. “There are various steps that one can go ahead, especially with LEED and green PR implementation in pharmaceuticals—which is what we have done as a first step by switching to solar power."

"Second is to deal with a briquette, which is like boiler fuel—another important step. The plant liquid waste has a moderate COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), so the third step is recycling wastewater after primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment. SPP is a facility that provides a systematic approach to the treatment of human excreta in water recycling and gardening. So boiler ash recycling for building material or brick manufacturing is another important step which needs to be taken,” he added.

BDR Pharmaceuticals, which was set up in 2002, began as a manufacturer of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) for the critical care segment; it now makes full dosages as well. Additionally, BDR focuses on four segments—oncology, critical care, neurology, and gynaecology. 

“So, to process waste which is normally the case with our chemical industry, it needs a lot of R&D. Another important part of our chemical industry is solvent recovery because the majority of the waste in the chemical industry comes in from the solvent. The people who don't have good solvent recovery plants, find it very difficult to dispose of it and that’s which creates environmental hazards. So, that is where it's important for any chemical plant, whether it's MSME or a large-scale enterprise, to have a good solvent recovery plant,” Dharmesh noted.