Project: Environment Management Centre of the Indian Chamber of Commerce Contact: Nazeeb Arif Tel: ++91 33 2220 4088 Web: www.indianchamber.org

Turning green into gold

Who could have guessed that a struggling economy, declining membership, and local industry's lack of environmental awareness would be the Indian Chamber of Commerce's secret to success?

It took realistic and bold thinking for the Indian Chamber of Commerce to acknowledge that not only was chamber membership declining, but there was also very little new investment flowing into Calcutta. At the same time, they recognized that environmental management is often viewed as a troublesome and costly corporate responsibility, and is therefore not a priority.

In fact, it's this very combination of factors that attributed to the success of the project. As the Indian chamber said, "We recognized the opportunity for our chamber to unleash a completely new initiative that we felt held the promise of bringing in significant positive change."

After coming up with a host of creative ways to help members significantly increase profits through better environment management systems, the Indian Chamber of Commerce launched the Environment Management Center in 1997.

Deciding to focus on the sale of services, and niche leadership opportunities, the Indian Chamber of Commerce created the unique and innovative ATIRE service. The ATIRE model, based on Awareness, Training, Information, Roundtable of Stakeholders, and Empanelment of Experts, now gives companies in the region a one-stop service solution for environment management.

Seeing the global value of this project, a number of agencies became involved, including the British Council, the Regional Institute for Environmental Technology in Singapore, United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), and the United States Asia Environment Partnersh ip (USAEP).

Today, the Environment Management Center is a self-sustaining body accounting for 50% of the chamber's service income. With over 200 companies and organizations regularly seeking the Indian Chamber of Commerce's environment management advice, the chamber is an acknowledged leader in this field.