The question that comes to the mind when one comes across the word ‘environment’ is that whether complying by the various needs in order to conserve environment especially in the developing countries is detrimental to the growth of its industrial clusters that are mostly run on traditional grounds.

The tirade against the various regulations since time immemorial even get strident whenever efforts are intensified to regulate the erring polluting industries and firms. This is for the reason that the strengthening of the regulatory policy may either lead to the closure of these units or the costs incurred to meet the regulations may increase the overall costs, which could throw these industrial clusters and small units out of the market. This could really prove to be disastrous for the workers, especially in labour-surplus economies like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. If long-term social costs of pollution are well publicized, then it will sway the balance in favour of environmental compliance. Even the affected constituents like labour, on whose behalf the industrialists swear, will insist on compliance if they are made aware of the long term damaging effects of pollution.

The second way would be that, a proactive approach of documenting all the successful cases, especially in developing countries where stringent regulations did not result in wiping off the industries, and instead led to the growth of the industry, can even hold a dormant support and facilitate higher level of compliance.