Environmental ratings for vehicles
New Delhi - Daewoo Motor India Ltd, Hyundai Motors India Ltd and General
Motors are the most environment friendly automobile companies in India,
according to the findings of the Green Rating Project (GRP) of the Centre
for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation.
The winning products of the three companies are - Matiz, Maruti-800
(Euro II), Santro, Hero Honda Splendor and CD-100.
Overall, the automobile sector fared poorly as far as environment management
is concerned — scoring 31.4 percent and deserving only two leaves. No company
qualified to get the five leaves award — the highest rating. Only nine
of the 29 companies participating managed to get three leaves. Almost all
of them were in the passenger car segment.
The worst companies were the non-participating ones — Bajaj Tempo Ltd,
Yamaha Motor Escort Ltd and Swaraj Mazda Ltd, a CSE statement said.
Speaking at a function last week to release of the ratings in New Delhi,
former finance minister Manmohan Singh said that the GRP will act as a
motivating force to all stakeholders to improve further." "I believe the
best is yet to come," he added. CSE director Sunita Narain said GRP's objective
is to push the Indian industry to become the best in the world, as far
as environmental management is concerned. Addressing the captains of the
industry, she said that profit may be their private business, but environment
is public business. "If you want to be in business, going green is not
just a matter of choice, but it is imperative for survival," said Aloke
Mukerjee, member of the Project Advisory Panel of GRP.
Accepting the award, Brij Mohanlal Munjal, chairperson, Hero Honda Motors
Ltd, said: "It is important to augment research and development in the
automobile sector." Aditya Vij, managing director, General Motors India,
said: "the GRP will help us to promote greener policies."
"We will continue to work with the government and NGOs like CSE to improve
our environmental performance," he added. A. P. Gandhi, president, Hyundai
Motors India Ltd, said the Indian industry has been till now only reactive
and "the time has now come to become proactive to environmental concerns."
Chandra Bushan, project coordinator of GRP, said that multinational companies
should bring in the best technology they have in the USA and the European
Union to India and should not resort to double standards.
Driving ahead
Most of the companies in the top ten are passenger car manufacturers, while
the worst ones are the two and three-wheeler manufacturers, Hero Honda
Motors being the only exception, which has got a three leaves rating and
ranks fifth, overall. Though Bajaj Auto Ltd and TVS Suzuki follow Hero
Honda Motors in this segment, they fare poorly in overall rating.
Car segment
Daewoo's small car, Matiz, has been judged the most environment friendly
vehicle, scoring high both in vehicle and engine design, as well as installing
pollution control equipment. Maruti's most popular vehicle, Maruti-800
(Euro II), is the second-most eco-friendly vehicle. Though it lost out
to Matiz in terms of design, it scores high in terms of controlling emissions.
The third most eco-friendly vehicle is Hyundai's Santro. The top three
eco-friendly vehicles are also small cars because they use lesser material
during manufacturing and consume lesser fuel.
Honda City 1.5V-tech gets the distinction of being the most technologically
advanced and least polluting vehicle in India with emissions as low as
85 per cent within regulations. The vehicle with the worst performance
environmentally is Mahindra & Mahindra's Armada, which comes last in
the passenger car segment.
2-3 wheeler segment
Both models of Hero Honda (Splendor and CD 100) are the most eco-friendly
two wheelers. They have scored above average in terms of vehicle and engine
design and are one of the few four-stroke two-wheelers fitted with any
kind of pollution control equipment. Bajaj Boxer, ranked third, has scored
well in vehicle engine design, but fares poorly in terms of emission control
equipment and emissions. The best two-stroke model ranks fourth amongst
the two-wheeler segment. The worst to fare in this segment is Kinetic Safari
Moped.
Mass transport segment
Among the mass transport vehicles, Ashok-Leyland's Viking CNG bus scored
high in emissions due to the inherent advantages of CNG vehicles, but was
judged average in terms of design.
Modus operandi
The GRP was launched by the CSE in 1996 to address the environmental challenges
facing the Indian industry. The United Nations Development Programme and
the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests support the project. The
first rating was done for the pulp and paper industry, which got wide approval
and praise from all sections of the society because of its unique methodology
of assessing companies, the CSE statement said.
The present rating of auto companies took over two years, due to the
diversity between companies in their production processes as well as the
products manufactured. The unique aspect was the participation of all major
automobile companies to assess the environmental health of the sector.
The project assessed 35 production facilities spread across nine Indian
states and almost 80 percent of products currently running on Indian roads.
The rating methodology for the automobile sector has been developed keeping
in mind the life cycle impact of the automobile industry. Thus, the weightages
were allotted accordingly with 80 percent of the score devoted to Life
Cycle Analysis (LCA) and the remaining 20 percent to corporate governance.
Life cycle analysis
The life cycle assessment included determining the environmental impacts
at various stages of the production process right from sourcing of raw
materials, manufacturing and assembly process, to the pollution caused
by use of the vehicle, and finally the impact caused by its disposal.
Impact of fuels on emissions
Based on the analysis of three diesel-fuelled mass transport vehicles and
two CNG-fuelled mass transport vehicles, the GRP found that CNG-fuelled
vehicles fare better in terms of tailpipe emissions than the diesel-fuelled
mass transport vehicles. CNG-fuelled vehicles have as much as five times
lower particulates and overall 73 percent lower emissions than their diesel
counterparts.
Overall, petrol vehicles show an inherent advantage over the diesel-fuelled
vehicles with all the top 13 cars being petrol ones. Even the best diesel
car, Mercedes E 220 ranks as low as 15. While the best multi-utility vehicle,
Qualis (Euro II), ranks a dismal 20th among all the 31 models.
Meeting regulations
While some Indian vehicles are meeting Euro II equivalent norms in the
national capital region of Delhi and Euro I equivalent norms in the rest
of the country, it was found that overall, automobiles in all the segments
are meeting the regulatory norms. However, the GRP found that this is not
enough. Companies can go beyond the minimum regulatory requirement, but
the absence of incentives from government discourages investment in cleaner
vehicles. The government should come out with an incentive mechanism to
differentiate between a good performer and excellent performer.
Production process:
* Companies are passing the buck of pollution to the vendors, who are normally
small-scale and are incapable of dealing with pollution.
* The entire sector uses paints that contain heavy metals and are based
on solvents. No company uses water-based paints.
* The regulatory standards for wastewater characteristic applicable
to the automobile sector are lax as well as irrational.
* Another interesting finding was that the majority of the petrol passenger
cars running on Indian roads are using catalytic converters which don't
suit their engine design.
Intel launches new Pentium
Intel Asia Electronics (IAE) last week launched the 2GHz Pentium 4 processor,
described as the latest milestone in the 20-year history of personal computers.
Dubbed as the world's highest performance desktop microprocessor the
Pentium 4 processor-based systems are designed to meet the needs of a wide
range of users.
For business users the Pentium 4 enables increased levels of productivity
and collaboration as well as the system longevity and return on investment
needed to achieve the greatest competitive advantage, officials said.
Intel Country Representative, S. Sivakanthan said the two versions of
the processor namely 2GHz and 1.9 GHz will be available at an Rs. 80,000
package including all the hardware and free Internet connection.
These PCs will be distributed by Debug Computer Peripherals and E.A.P.
Computers in Sri Lanka.
Security group to safeguard shipping
LONDON (Reuters) - A new international security group was launched on October
31 to protect shipping, spurred by growing fears that terrorists could
use fuel-laden tankers as floating missiles against coastal cities.
After hijackers used passenger aircraft as missiles to such deadly effect
on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon on September 11, security experts
see shipping as a possible vehicle for a similar attack on the U.S.
"Three companies have formed a unique joint venture to address the challenges
to marine security in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on
the U.S.," said a statement by Global Maritime Security Systems.
The three companies are the US-based tanker operator, Energy Transportation
Group, the London-based security firm, Hart Group and London-based shipping
financier, Tufton Oceanic.
"The catastrophic scenario is an LNG (liquefied natural gas) ship just
coming into harbour and an aircraft flown into it, or an LNG ship taken
over by the crew and crashed into a terminal in a mass suicide," Hart Group
director Richard Bethell told Reuters.
Bethell said the joint venture would act as an adviser on port security,
crew vetting and international route planning but would try to avoid using
armed guards.
Recently U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the administration
had "credible" information of an upcoming attack on U.S. interests.
A federal judge threw out a recent lawsuit filed by Boston Mayor Thomas
Menino, who sought to block LNG ships from entering the harbour on fears
that they were not adequately prepared for an explosion in the densely
populated region.
The vulnerability of shipping to attack was illustrated two weeks ago,
when the oil tanker Silk Pride exploded off Sri Lanka during a Tamil Tiger
suicide attack, killing seven.
Formidable weapon
"One of the biggest risks to shipping is the crew themselves," said Bethell.
"The senior officers are well vetted, but a lot of the crew come from areas
where potentially terrorists could get stooges on board."
The Philippines — home of the militant group Abu Sayyaf — is the world's
biggest crew supplier, while Indonesia is home to numerous radical Muslim
groups and is the world's second biggest crew supplier.
Bethell said port security and ship routing were also key issues, but
if possible they would try to avoid putting armed guards on ships. "It
doesn't reduce the threat significantly and causes complications in port,"
he said.
While an LNG explosion is not considered especially deadly on its own,
explosives experts say a booster charge could turn one ship into a formidable
weapon.
"It's a question of how you prime it," said Bethell. "You can create
anything if you get the right level of combustion."
Two US LNG accidents, one in 1944 and the other during the 1970s, killed
a total of 166 people and added to fears about the fuel.
Bethell also highlighted the threat to passenger ships. "If terrorists
start getting caught and tried, then a cruise ship would be the perfect
platform from which others could gain leverage," he said.
In 1985 an Italian cruise liner, the Achille Lauro, was hijacked by
the Palestine Liberation Front. One of the passengers, Leon Klinghoffer,
a wheelchair-bound Jewish American, was murdered.
In June, Spanish police said they had foiled a plan by the armed Basque
separatist group ETA to sink a ferry out of Santander using a car bomb.
Lanka Felts headgear tops safety awards
Lanka Felts (Pvt) Ltd was the merit winner of the National Safety Award
in the All-Island Medium Scale Category for 2001.
The awards, held once in two years, was sponsored by Eagle Insurance
in collaboration with the Department of Labour and the Employees' Trust
Fund Board.
Lanka Felts was established in 1998 with British collaboration and accredited
by ISO 9002 in 2000. It specialises in the manufacture of high quality
headgear for prestigious brand names in European and USA markets.
"It was a proud moment for me to accept this award on behalf of Lanka
Felts. We are committed to ensuring that we provide and maintain a safe
working environment for each and every member of our precious staff," said
Robert Hurst, Managing Director of Lanka Felts.
Rohan Ariyawansa, the company's human resources and administration manager
said total commitment and teamwork enabled them to win this award. |
