But it may not be such an easy terrain to traverse. “India is rapidly expanding. So it is important to look from tomorrow’s perspective — the upcoming decade, the next few decades. You can just visualise what this would mean in terms of the current practices that we are adopting and then fast forward to 2047 – it’s a mind-boggling impact. If you try to visualise this, it is not a very bright spot. It is very gloomy,” Krishna Mohan Puvvada, Regional President-India of global biotechnology company Novozymes, said while speaking at the 18th Sustainability Summit, a flagship event of CII, in the capital on Tuesday.
Biotechnology is known to have a range of applications, the most notable ones being in medicine and agriculture. Considered a sunrise sector within the Indian economy, it includes industries such as bio-IT, bio-services, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and chemicals, among others.
Puvvada said there was a need to think beyond obvious challenges while also aiming high and finding a new audience for mankind’s ecosystems. “This is where a lot of technologies will need to come into play. Biotech is one such part – it’s a very important pathway. Because what it can do is nothing short of magic,” he stated.
Explaining how a lot of products are essentially fossil fuel-based, which needs to change, Puvvada said that tackling the issue from a biotech adoption perspective can help save 3 gigatons of CO2. “This is roughly equivalent to what India emits on an annual basis – about 2.9 gigatons. Now, that’s the power of biotech.”Talking more about biosolutions and varied technologies, he added that there were around 400 applications of biotechnological interventions that can be brought across different processes. Substantiating his view from a McKinsey study of 400 biosolutions, Puvvada stated that biosolutions in different use cases would amount to huge numbers. “If we use these 400 solutions, convert it and translate that into an economic value, it’s about an economy of $40 trillion for the next one to 10 years. That’s the size of what biosolutions and bioeconomy can actually look like. This is, of course, world data and not just India,” he said. Directing attention to India, he said the country has a target to be a $300-billion bioeconomy by 2030. “That is just the tip of the iceberg,” he added while conveying that there was a lot more scope of using the power of biotechnology across domains. Talking about some of the technologies that biotech can enable for climate action and decarbonisation, Puvvada gave the examples of detergents and agricultural practices. “If 100% of the detergents across the world were to be bio-based, then that would mean that you can actually reduce the discharge by 10 tons of chemicals every minute. That’s the impact. In the case of agricultural practices, a lot of bio-pesticides are used. Even if you replace 10% of the bio-pesticides and bring in biologics into the scheme and mode of action, it would imply about 250 tons of chemical usage that can be reduced.”
Explaining how a large part of the economy was built using fossil fuels, which have led to the release of large amounts of CO2 and greenhouse gases, he stated that the garment industry has been investing in subsidising the fossil-based economy. “We need to stop that and start with incentivising and building for the future instead. And the future is possibly nature’s own way, which is a biotech way,” he added.
