RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION INITIATIVE (ROI) FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Industrial Ecology could have far reaching implications in the economic and development planning process in the developing countries. To progress this agenda, a few persons keenly associated with Industrial Ecology are establishing the Resource Optimization Initiative (ROI). The mission of the ROI is to promote the implementation of the concepts and tools of Industrial Ecology in the development and business planning processes in developing countries. As the name suggests, the focus would be optimizing resource use in the economic systems of developing countries with an initial focus on Land, Water and Energy.
ROI is a not-for-profit institution. Although a few persons have offered themselves to be the initial promoters, the aim is to bring together IE professionals in the endeavor and all are encouraged and invited to participate in developing ROI.
ROI has identified two major programs that will be kick-started immediately. The first is an Industrial Ecology training program that will be offered in India, which will include an introduction to all aspects of the social context and economics of developing countries, fieldwork in India on a specific Industrial Ecology case study, in addition to theoretical inputs in Industrial Ecology. An international faculty panel will be identified for the Industrial Ecology courses. The second program of ROI is to build a web enabled database of technology options and capabilities for resource optimization, which could include a wide range of processes and models for recycling, resource conservation and resource efficiency improvement. Initial discussions are being held with some potential working partners and funding partners to make the plans more concrete.
Please contact Ramesh Ramaswamy, rameshry@vsnl.com, for further details. Please circulate the ROI documents to persons or institutions that can help fund the various projects of ROI, can help fund students to attend the Industrial Ecology Training Program or otherwise partner with ROI is its work.
Posted on September 08, 2004