Business and management are not always about the virtues of giving credit where it is due. That is why we can all celebrate the inaugural Autoplast Speicon award to Cereplast Inc. (CERP) without a twinge on most consciences! CERP’s technologists surely deserve the highest commendations for their sterling work in developing degradable plastics from biological sources, but who inspired the global push towards matching green with black?
This Millennium had not even dawned when Michael E. Porter from the legendary Harvard Business School wrote about sustainable competitive advantage through technologies for environmental protection. That is not all: Porter also postulated a novel template for the competitiveness of nations. The 1990s are only moments away in historical terms, but the days of socialism in countries such as India, as well as flagrant pollution, seem almost from another galaxy!
Most management experts may not have heard of the Society of Plastics Engineers. India is now known much better in business circles than it used to be when Michael Porter first published his seminal works, but piracy and intellectual property have plagued the image of this rapidly growing economy. However, the recent award to CERP for the Highest Contribution in Plastic Material Development, in Mumbai, which is India’s equivalent of Wall Street, deserves widespread attention.
BiopropyleneTM is substantially made from natural starches produced on farm lands. It meets the cacophony of criticism leveled against plastics head on, and though CERP has won the award for its contribution to the automobile industry, degradable polypropylene is a breakthrough with far wider business implications. CERP is ready with more advanced hybrid resins that progressively increase the organic and degradable contents of their products. All this is not just music to ears of ‘greens’ for CERP will also invest in a new US manufacturing facility to turn its commendable environmental protection achievements in to black digits of revenues, jobs, and profits!
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