Altered images: the 2001 state of corporate responsibility in India poll. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia: update one

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business are currently working with various partners on a new initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the UK Department for International Development. Additional support has been obtained from the Commonwealth Science Council, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh

Altered images: the 2003 state of corporate responsibility. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia update three: Bangladesh

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business have been working with various partners on an initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the Department for International Development, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. This report presents the results of the initiative’s third activity - an agenda-setting survey on corporate responsibility in Bangladesh. The survey explored the views and expectations of workers, company executives, and civil society groups towards the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities of companies operating in Bangladesh. It was the first to include workers in a survey on corporate responsibility. The survey was carried out in 2003 through a partnership between TERI-Europe, LGA Consultants, and the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka. The results presented in this report are intended to provide a better understanding of attitudes and practices and develop targeted training materials for company executives, workers, and community representatives

Altered images: the 2003 state of corporate responsibility. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia update two: Sri Lanka

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business have been working with various partners on an initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the Department for International Development, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. This report presents the results of the initiative’s second activity - an agenda-setting survey on corporate responsibility in Sri Lanka. The survey explored the views and expectations of workers, company executives, and civil society groups towards the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities of companies operating in Sri Lanka. It was the first to include workers in a survey on corporate responsibility. The survey was carried out in 2003 through a partnership between TERI-Europe, LGA Consultants, and the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre in Colombo. The results presented in this report are intended to provide a better understanding of attitudes and practices and develop targeted training materials for company executives, workers, and community representatives

Correlation of indoor-outdoor air quality in urban areas

Indoor and outdoor air quality was investigated at 28 public locations with mostly mechanical ventilation systems. The locations were selected from various geographic categories representing different environments for indoor/outdoor air pollutant characterisation. The selected indoor locations included restaurants, recreation places, sport centres, schools, commercial kitchens, hotels, swimming pools and movie theatres. The concentrations of PM, CO, NO2 and selected priority metals were measured at each location. Pollutant concentrations exceeded indoor air quality standards at locations with indoor sources (smoking, gas stoves, cleaning products, etc.). As such, highest I/O ratios were correlated with the existence of indoor sources for the pollutant of concern. The effects of outdoor conditions were reflected in terms of distance to the main road and the correlation between indoor and outdoor levels was evident when the sampled locations were sorted on the basis of their source characteristics