Written by Avantika Saraogi – Promoter & Business Lead: New Initiatives Balrampur Chini Mills Limited (BCML)
The entire nation is currently striving to establish a “Sustainable Economy”, wherein such an economy can ideally be created with the help of responsible and self-driven citizens and organizations. The current environmental conditions do not permit “sustainability” to remain a textbook term anymore.
The worsening conditions have compelled individuals and brands to take the onus on themselves and delve deeper into the importance of creating an environment that is sustainable and deploying energy smartly.
Organizations especially manufacturing companies have a huge role to play to ensure that they inculcate sustainable and economical practices in their business and don’t cast any adverse effect on the
environment.
The challenge of global warming is on our faces, literally. While companies have begun to spend heftily on cutting-edge technology for higher production efficiency, they also need to keep a thorough check on the kind of emissions they generate and disposal of waste (effluents & emissions) ensuring a focused benchmarking of their activities with the United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals.
Companies have begun to implement a wide range of progressive practices like maximization of asset utilization, moderation of resource consumption, per unit of production, and many more to ensure that they channelize their energy usage efficiently.
Heavy industries have initiated decarbonization and have embraced resource-efficient processes. Cogeneration is yet another practice that impacts the overall functioning of a manufacturing company especially that of a sugar manufacturing unit.
It not only reduces the wastage of energy but also enhances operational efficiency and provides massive energy independence.
While India is on its journey to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and other forms of imported fuels, it is always a smarter alternative to relying on renewable energy for our energy requisites.
Sugar manufacturing units master the mechanism of “Creating more from less”. While there are hosts of environmental risks, if negated efficiently, these units can manufacture multiple products alongside sugar.
One of the steps which have been undertaken by the manufacturing companies in this segment is that they are constantly trying to build integrated sugar complexes over standalone sugar units.
The endeavor is to create a broad base from sugar to the downstream processing of byproducts generating multiple
products and revenue avenues.
The underlying principle is in the success of generating maximum value from a stick of sugarcane as every part of the sugarcane plant and the byproducts after the production of sugar, with proper treatment can further be used to produce biofuels, soil conditioners, electricity, and press mud biofertilizer.
Fuel production or Bio- Ethanol, is not merely a distillery product, but ever since the National Biofuels Policy was introduced in 2018, the transformation has been dramatic and immediately attracting large investments in this sector.
The nature of the energy products produced from sugarcane- Bio-Ethanol helps moderate air pollution while Co-generation presents a cleaner alternative to fossil fuel-derived energy.
These segments mark the sugar industry’s graduation towards sustainability and a greener India. The environmental commitment of sugar manufacturers should focus on manufacturing environmentally responsible or renewable resources, rationalizing resource quantities, recycling waste, and replacing fossil fuels with cleaner alternatives strengthening the ecology of the locations of the factories thereby reducing carbon footprint.
Sugar Industry is now complete utilisation of sugar, molasses, begasse in very efficient way. No doubt we have achieved a lot efficiently, but a lot of work to be done on pollution produced by Sugar Industry., Distelleries and power plants.