KPMG and CII outline 8 point approach for Indian companies in the latest climate change report

KPMG and CII today released a joint report on climate change. The report titled ‘Climate change: The impact and opportunities for Indian industry’ attempts to gauge what companies can do in its fight against climate change, the risks that it poses as well as the opportunities it affords.

The report suggests that whilst currently low, the pressure from stakeholders for Indian companies to be more environmentally responsible is likely to increase in the future, thereby compelling delivery by firms across all industries on a triple bottom line of economics, social and environmental performance.

Speaking on the report release Mr. Arvind Mahajan, Executive Director, KPMG said “The Indian companies should take proactive measures to ensure adequate risk appraisal and management as well as leverage opportunities arising out of climate change. They need to do proper due diligence for Clean Development Mechanism projects to assess the quantum of carbon credits expected to be generated”. Mr. Mahajan added, “Indian businesses also need to consider tax and regulatory issues and devise strategies to help ensure that they can maximize the benefit from the CDM process”.

The KPMG-CII report suggests that individual businesses need to develop a structured approach consisting of the following components:

1) Measurement of the carbon footprint of the business

2) Projecting the likely carbon footprint if the business continues to grow under the ‘Business As Usual’ scenario

3) Analysis of the risk of climate change issues to the sector and the business

4) Identification of opportunities within the business, and beyond (CDM projects, clean technologies, renewables, etc) to maintain growth, but with a different approach

5) Preparation of time bound action plan for reducing the carbon footprint compared to the projected carbon footprint

6) Institutionalize the action plan in business processes

7) Institutionalize a measurement and verification system to monitor progress against the plan

8) Periodically report progress to stakeholders