Karnataka Forest Minister
Eshwar Khandre released a toolkit and manuals for the Green Index initiative on Wednesday. The initiative is expected to analyse, evaluate, and rank environmental protection initiatives deployed in government infrastructure projects and programmes.
The toolkit will look at a composite measure of the environmental performance of a project. The index, developed in collaboration with the Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute (EMPRI) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), will use a set of indicators and sub-indicators reflecting environmental concerns. These indicators include adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy, water conservation and recycling, waste treatment and recycling, air pollution control, biodiversity conservation, carbon dioxide emission reduction or sequestration, and adaptation to disasters and climate change.
The focus of this toolkit is to present guidelines for developing the Green Index at the stage of designing, formulation, and approval of new developmental programmes or schemes.
The indicators and sub-indicators are then scored on a scale of 1 to 4 for the given project. The green index value for projects and programmes is then estimated based on the scores given for the indicators and sub-indicators.
The minister said the idea behind the initiative is to prevent and conserve biodiversity and maintain ecological balance by avoiding overexploitation of natural resources.
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