" environment audit is a form of social audit which the corporate sector has to accept in order to qualify as good corporate citizens,' said former Union finance minister Manmohan Singh, while formally releasing the environmental ratings of 28 pulp and paper mills on July 28. The first of its kind in India, the Green Rating Project ( grp ), as it is called, was conducted by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. While calling for a new mindset among captains of the industry, Singh emphasised: "The time has come for the industry to realise its responsibility to all the stakeholders and not only shareholders.'

But, as of now, says project coordinator Chandra Bhushan Singh, "The overall health of the industry is not very good. The top-rated mills finished with only three leaves signifying that none could cross a weighted score of 50. As many as 12 mills were in the poor or one leaf category.'

The ratings were presented to president K R Narayanan on July 19 at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The president complimented cse for undertaking such a project and suggested it should cover other industries and organisations, too. Malti Sinha, secretary, ministry of environment and forests ( mef ), informed the president that mef has requested cse to rate the chemicals and automobile sector and that work on the automobile sector had already begun.
Teaching business Supported by the undp and the mef , the project took 18 months to complete. The mills were evaluated using over a hundred green criteria under three broad categories