A special meeting on 'Chamber Day' was organised by the Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between two countries.
N Kumar addressing the gathering.
Speaking on the occasion on 'Indo-Japan Relationships: In Retrospect and Prospects', N Kumar highlighted the many historical similarities in the culture and tradition of the two countries. Though the relationship had been at low ebb due to political and economical differences a few decades ago, it picked up slowly in a newer direction, he added. "The two countries are now rapidly increasing their presence in the manufacturing sector. The total business will stand at US $18 billion this year, passing another milestone in the relationship."
Earlier, the Japanese Consul-General in Chennai Masanori Nakano, expressed happiness about these business ties and added that nearly 300 Japanese companies were present in Tamil Nadu.
(L to r): N Kumar, Justice MM Sundresh, Judge of Madras High Court and Masanori Nakono,
Consul-General of Japan in Chennai.
Jagadguru Sankaracharya Bharati Tirtha Swamigal, the religious head of the Sharada Peetham, Sringeri, visited and blessed the Chemplast Sanmar Cuddalore plant on 13 June 2012.
Vijay Sankar and members of the senior management team accorded His Holiness a warm reception.
Extracts from S Gopal's speech during the National Seminar at the University of Madras on 1 March 2012.
Sustainable development helps maintain the ecological footprint and allows nature to regenerate without hindering the process.
It is no longer limited to economic value creation but is about inclusive development.
Corporate sustainability has been defi ned as a business approach for creating long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental and social developments.
Hence sustainability in industry is
It is important to note that human resources play the most important role in achieving the above.
HR must ensure that a sustainable approach to managing its employees is part of the business strategy. A truly sustainable business is created when all employees are aware of how their roles contribute to the sustainability agenda. In this way HR transforms the business impacts ON employees into the sustainable impacts OF employees.
The Sanmar Group has taken Water Management as an initiative for sustainable development.
We have a corporate guideline, actually a diktat from our Group Chairman.
This corporate guideline has to be actualised by engineers and managers working in operating plants and at the design stage in new plants.
What did our engineers come up with?
Not using water when you can do without it.
Chemplast Mettur had invested in a power plant a couple of years ago.During the conceptual stage, our engineers had decided to go in for air-cooled condensers in order to save water consumption when compared with conventional cooling towers. The cost of air-cooled condensers was twice that of the cooling towers, but for the sole purpose of saving water ACC was installed. About 30 lakh litres of water are saved per day. And our efficiency actually improved, lowering cost. Sustainability does pay.
Recycle and reuse of water
Chemplast is the fi rst large chemical company to achieve Zero Liquid
Discharge. No treated effl uent is let
in to the environment – either into
water bodies or on land; all effluent
is completely recycled.
The investment for Zero Liquid Discharge was Rs. 27 crore and as a pioneering initiative, it posed some technical challenges in setting up. These have been overcome by our team of engineers. The Mettur plants have not discharged a single drop for more than 700 days.
24 X 7 X 365 days of ZLD was the objective of the organisation and the main impediments in achieving the same were,
Changing characteristics of effluent due to
Chemplast Sanmar constituted a team of the best available engineers with more than 15 years of experience in process plant operations to oversee the ZLD plant and to achieve the objective.
The team came up with many i nitiatives for further source segregation to handle product mix changes, minor process upsets and innovative methods of recycling.
This has resulted in not a drop of water being discharged since mid September 2009.
S Gopal in conversation with Dr G Thiruvasagam, Vice Chancellor, University of
Madras.
The Sanmar Group has a policy that all new facilities should be designed for ZLD from the conceptual stage. The new Cuddalore facility for manufacture of PVC has been a zero discharge plant from the date of inception. Further, in our Cuddalore plant, in spite of the fact that the aquifer is hardly three metres below surface, we have adopted the "No Ground Water" principle and use desalination processes instead to meet our water consumption needs.
The challenges of sustainable and inclusive development need all of us to join and align our forces to do what we can in our respective areas of infl uence and operation.