A new set of guidelines for Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) will be released this week in the public domain to support the CSR and Sustainability Guidelines already in place, said A K Pavadia, Joint Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises, Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises, at FICCI's 'Indian Conference on Life Cycle Management' (ILCM 2014).
 
Life Cycle Thinking is playing an increasingly important role in guiding and shaping business operations worldwide. ILCM is a flagship event instituted by FICCI to promote Life Cycle Thinking among various stakeholder groups in India government, industry, academia, as well as non-government institutes.

Pavadia said that the government is providing an overarching framework in which CSR is embedded. He urged the businesses not to restrict their social and community spending to two per cent as mentioned in the Companies Act, the compulsory CSR spending, and should expand and go beyond it to achieve a sustainable business model. He added that now the PSUs will have to report the sustainability initiatives undertaken by them.
 
The conference brought together Indian and international Life Cycle Assessment/Management (LCA/LCM) experts and interested stakeholders to promote Life Cycle Approaches in India. ILCM is the only forum in India that focuses exclusively on Life Cycle related work of academicians, industry, policy makers and relevant stakeholders.
 
With sustainability becoming one of the top 10 emerging issues in India, the critical question of how to ensure more sustainable business practices in the future calls for cogitation. Life cycle management is one such business management approach that can be used by any industry/organization to improve overall sustainability performance including their value chain.
 
In this context, FICCI's flagship event, Indian Conference on Life Cycle Management in 2012 was launched to mainstream LCM and LCA based approaches among various stakeholder groups in India government, industry, academia and non-government organizations.
 
Pavadia suggested that businesses should follow the cradle-to-grave approach in life cycle management of a product to create a sustainable process. He also asked the organizations promoting LCM/A to explain the benefits of it to businesses and encourage and motivate them to take it up proactively for enhancing long term sustainability.