Build ESG collaborative framework and harness stubble-burning as Clean Energy

Key takeaways

• Leverage stubble to create biomass energy and alleviate stubble-burning issues.
• Create a win-win situation for all through the collective effort of socially responsible entities.
• Route stubble to generate cost-effective alternatives for expensive fuel. 
  

ESG is a collective social responsibility. The ancient Indus Valley Civilization was much evolved and believed in collective harmony. It believed in harnessing collective effort towards a greater good. The ethos of giving back to the environment and society stems from such holistic thinking. On the same lines of thinking, the modern-day issues related to the greenhouse effect and pollution have to be curbed through a collective mining of ideas. Ongoing environmental debates about curbing the harm done through stubble burning (or land preparation before taking the next crop) must be simplified by undertaking collaborative initiatives for the greater good. 

What is stubble-burning?

Stubble-burning has become a primary activity for farming land preparation before taking the next crop of the season. Stubbles are the lower stumps of a crop that are dry and hard and are not the edible part of a produce. The stubbles, if removed manually from the farm, require a huge labor cost and time. Most farmers do not have adequate financial resources to employ heavy machines to weed the stubbles. The most cost-effective way for the poor farmer is stubble-burning. The activity generates massive clouds of smoke filled with carbon dioxide and ambers that toxically affect the environment, right from the nearby electricity towers to the Air Quotient Index (AQI) in the neighboring residential areas. As the farming lands span acres and acres across geographical areas, the collective effect brings down the visibility of the air and land transport, causing accidents. The fallouts can be intelligently curbed if nipped right in the bud. 

How are stubble-burning and clean energy a natural progression?

Stubble-burning is the direct fallout of a socio-economic divide and lack of education. The same stubble can be easily harnessed to make biomass energy or clean energy. The hindrance is a lack of collaboration between socially responsible entities. A collective effort that joins the dots from the poor farmer to the companies that produce biomass energy is sufficient to curb the harmful effects of stubble-burning.

How can a collective ESG effort between organizations help generate clean energy?

Socially responsible organizations can collectively buy the stubble from the poor farmer at a reasonable price per kilogram and sell it to Government bodies institutionalized at the town or district level. The collaborating entities can run the endeavor only to cover the OpEx, depending on the size of the collaboration. Bigger collaborating entities can involve logistics to directly reach the stubble to the biomass energy producing companies. The collective ESG effort between socially responsible organizations can nip the stubble-burning problem right in the bud and contribute to the crusade of generating clean energy.

What are the use cases of harnessing stubble for generating biomass energy?

Biomass energy is a clean form of energy. It can be harnessed in multiple ways. It will be cheaper as it is generated from the unusable stubble, which farmers discard. Some of the important use cases are: 

• Vehicle fuel: It can be a cost-effective alternative to CNG, diesel, and petrol.
• Industry fuel: It can be used to reduce the OpEx of manufacturing industries.
• Cooking gas: It is a dependable way of generating energy for cooking food.
• Heating hotel rooms: It can reduce the maintenance of hotels and hence, the cost of hotel stays.
• Generating electricity: Biomass can be used directly to generate cheap electricity as an alternative energy in geographies with low sunshine.
• Biomass fertilizer: The waste remaining after biomass gas generation can be prepared for fertilizer generation. 

Simply put