'Maintaining the environment is fundamental'

Ajit Kamat, Chairman and Managing Director, Arch Pharmalabs spoke to Garima Arora on the company's commitment to a clean environment

What is your company's approach to environment management?

At Arch, we realise the importance to leave the world a better place than what has been given by our predecessors in every walk of life. With the shift of more and more chemical manufacturing to countries like India and China, we in India need to more so commit ourselves to the values that we do not in anyway pollute air, water or soil in the process of creating value for our stakeholders

What is the role of the employees in achieving these goals?

Our employees are educated and made conscious of the concept of "minimizing waste wherever possible rather than generating and disposing of the same". At Arch we are further involved in exploring avenues of minimizing fossil fuel usage and bringing in renewable biofuels to do the same job and thus bringing energy efficiency. Our employees actively participate in the above processes on a continuous basis.

Are there any community relationship programmes in place to take this environmental philosophy forward?

Concern and action are part of our business processes. Arch meets the community to take feedback on various developmental efforts & their impact. For example when a new project is initiated, key community leaders & spokespersons are explained about the project and how environmental impacts have been addressed right at the planning stage.

What are the certifications acquired by your company?

Third party certification is a transparent way of acquitting our commitment and we thus have certified one of our manor units (Merven site) to ISO 14000 system certification. We have clear timelines and are resolute about bringing all our manufacturing sites under this globally accepted system.

garima.arora@expressindia.com