Accelerators for green economy

 Accelerators and technologies for green economy- the progress over decades.

Prof DK Subramanian, IISc

Abstract

This paper shows how technologies, commerce and manufacturing developed over the past 50 plus years to create a sizable green economy. Initially , even with great push , the green concept didn’t pick up despite government support and law. Two developments helped in bringing the green economy into a central stage. One was the impact of the climate crisis and the second was the arrival of cost effective digital computers and fast optical and mobile communications. The green economy was built with synergistic purposes for all sectors. All sectors grew at a good pace. It was a win-win situation for manufacturing, services,health ,education,banking and fintech, commerce and governance. The digital economy was advantageous in many ways - cost reduction, higher quality, scaleup, increased reliability, global reach,optimal use of resources like minerals, water, talent,energy etc. It introduced the concepts of soft commodities, outsourcing, global delivery centres, collaboration and even globalised operations and management. Green became not only affordable ,but a necessity . Otherwise ,industries and services will die without transformation to digital and green. Prof Clayton Christensen called it disruptive innovation. With AI, this growth will speed up.

Introduction

The types of economy change with time and priorities of development. We talk of the trade economy as the oldest, followed by the monetary economy, industrial economy in the nineteenth century. Then we got services economy , fiscal economy in the early 20th century followed by digital economy dominated by IT in the late 20th century.The resources crisis in 1980s due to increased consumption and population led to the frugal economy or green economy.

We used the term nature in the early days. Later we coined the two terms - ecology and environment before we invented the term green.The term green was coined much later in 1983. But the concepts were followed much earlier. Even Gandhi talked about it. Our Isa upanishad starts with frugal use of natural resources.Two cornerstones at that time were: Nourishing the nature- enrichment-and minimizing our consumption -one is to increase biodiversity and supply of natural resources and the other is to reduce consumption. 

The Green economy was  not understood and was resisted for a very long time.Even today ,development means higher consumption leading to higher production and increased GDP. Green became prominent when countries perceived the effects of rising temperatures due to increased carbon content in the atmosphere.

Then and to some extent, even now  developers  looked at green  in a fragmented manner. That led to a sequential development of green components.

History 

Let me give a sequence of green developments.

Green manufacturing economy

I.The first stage was the development of  green technologies/ green manufacturing. A number of activities were initiated in the seventies and eighties. Some of them are:

1.Focus on pollution control - water and air. Seeing the poor state of our rivers and large-scale deforestation , the government of India set up a new department of environment. It enacted the prevention of water pollution act to curtail pollution of rivers and increase the quality of water. Treatment of waste water and sewerage was almost unknown then. But Today , water treatment is taken up by all big apartments in cities. RO is common in most households.

2.Resources minimization – less water /power use through better technologies. Initially, there were no standards. Paper, cement,thermal power plants,textiles, sugar, etc industries let their wastes into public areas. The efficiencies of most thermal power plants were around 15 to 20%. Our wood stove efficiencies were also very low. So efforts were made to develop energy efficient technologies.The energy star was introduced.

3.Carrying capacity – locate industries optimally, closer to resources.

4.Focus on the use of renewables. Government of India set up the department of non conventional energy in 1982 to popularise the use of renewable energy. 

5.Waste to reuse- agro residues.

6.Carbon reduction

7.Climate change

Computers to the rescue. Green usage.

Green services economy

II. The focus shifted from the supply side to the demand side-green usage .

Internet and web services took frugalism to a higher level. These activities started in the mid nineties and progressively increased their hold and reduced the need for resources. Remote operations became the standard phenomenon. Initially, it was offline -Indians working when the west sleeps and west using Indian outputs and working further on it the next day. It was convenient. The stages of development are:

1.Paperless office

2.Soft copy storage and online access. Digital libraries. 

3.Remote use with web – transportation costs came down

4.Online lectures, online schools and universities.

5.Online banking

III. manufacturing 

Frugal technologies 

Automation – plant level, process level, design automation, operations automation

Components of automation- control systems, computers, instrumentation, communications, robots, drones 

IV.Mobile communication – no posts

Mobile interactions- social networks

Mobile learning and access to libraries and lectures

mobile operations

V. remote operations online. There were many technological developments that happened at this time like high speed and large memory computers at low prices, networking of servers and with PCs and workstations, internet, rugged software etc building a new discipline called IT - information technology. These changes introduced another change in the structure and operations of big companies. They concentrated on their core competencies and outsourced the secondary work to India. This led to a big change in the thinking of the economy. Till now companies and countries looked at only physical commodities for processing and selling. But now in the year 2000, a new concept emerged- soft commodities. Files containing work and data were transferred and processed. The files and data were the soft commodities. The new market started growing.

This period ,1995 onwards, saw the growth of startups in silicon valley aided by Stanford primarily and by others. Innovation dominated at this time. SUN, Google  dominated the industry scene.

Call centres- customer interactions

Medical transcriptions

Help centres- remote operations- all stakeholders like suppliers, shareholders, 

Data access – online , remote

Global operations – remote

Cloud

Cloud-smart is a strategic, balanced approach to cloud adoption that moves beyond simply putting everything in the cloud (cloud-first) to making informed decisions about what, when, and how to use cloud services, optimizing for specific business goals, costs, security, and performance. It involves using hybrid, multi-cloud, or on-premise solutions where appropriate, focusing on outcomes, governance, and cost control (FinOps), rather than a one-size-fits-all migration. 

Key principles of being cloud-smart:

Context-Driven Decisions: Choosing the right environment (public, private, hybrid) for each workload based on its specific needs, not defaulting to the cloud.

Workload Optimization: Analyzing applications to determine if they should be rehosted, refactored, rebuilt, or replaced, and designing cloud-native solutions where beneficial.

Cost Governance: Implementing financial operations (FinOps) to track usage, eliminate waste, and control ballooning cloud costs.

Security First: Establishing strong governance and security postures before or during migration, not as an afterthought.

Business Outcome Focus: Aligning cloud strategies with tangible business goals, innovation, and mission delivery, rather than just infrastructure migration. 

VI. green commerce

While initially soft commodities meant only static items , now the soft commodity flows became dynamic in 2010. Online end to end transactions became common.

Digital logistics

Digital online payments

UPI , wallets

Ecommerce – B to B , B to C, G to C etc.

Mcommerce

Quick commerce- multicommodity

Remote medical assistance, consultation

VII. green management

outsourcing

Global delivery centres – software development  from a remote place

Global design centres 

Upto this point, all centres focused on a single function. The focus was the use of IT and Indian companies focused on digital services.  That led to a cyclic economy dependent on supply and demand.

With the advent of very high speed and high bandwidth gigabits per second communications across the world through multiple links and channels, connectivity became much better. The world shrunk. New York and Bombay were nearer. San Francisco and Bangalore were closer. Data centres cemented this connection. Cloud computing unified this connectivity and removed not only distances but also differences in the world. Space ports brought reliability and ruggedness to the connections. The world is now an integral unit. Live anywhere, work for anyone located anywhere. Roads were replaced by communication networks. This heralded the GCCs.

India is the world capital of Global capability centres . The features of a GCC are multifunctionalities, coordination, management, and strategy. It is like the CEO shifted to GCC. 

Global Capability Center (GCC)

What it is: A subsidiary set up by a multinational company to centralize and deliver key business operations, such as IT, finance, R&D, and HR. 

Purpose: Originally established for cost savings, GCCs have evolved into strategic hubs for innovation, access to talent, and high-value functions.

Key features:

Fully owned and controlled by the parent organization.

It is a CEOs digital office, not a periphery unit. 

Focuses on both support and strategic activities.

Leverages local talent and infrastructure

It shifts the economy from circular to secular, providing stability. 

VIII. green economy 

Integration of all entities

Coordination

Policies 

Governance- Bangalore one, passport seva, IT returns, GST, etc, work from home, cyber security, law and order, smart city, 

What are the accelerators?

Accelerators help in ushering in latest technologies into the society and improving sustainable economy. Some are practices ,some policies, some inventions, some applications. A few are listed below.

1.Pollution controls methods and technologies

2.Resource minimization technologies

3.Renewables

4.Digital computing and control

5.Internet and web

6. Cloud computing

7.Mobile apps

8.Social networks

9.Big data and Data analytics

10.Outsourcing

11.GCC

12. AI agents

Conclusion

We will see more changes happening in the coming years. While the economy is moving in proper directions over the years with the help of technologies, we need to focus on making it inclusive- sab ka sath ,sabka vikas is a good goal for the economy.