BCIL sheds scales as it turns ten . . .

BCIL turns a decade old in January were we not to reckon the six months prior to January 1995 that we spent in fierce consultation on the birth of an idea.
And as we look ahead at the next decade of tumult for the planet, we can see we need greater resolve to stick to those mission values that we set out for ourselves then.
That means, for us, taking some definitive steps to shed some of our old scales. We see the need for that next step in our evolution. We began then with the activists’ conviction—although in enterprise garb—that an ethical basis of life and work could be converted into a viable way of life; not into an ideology that will descend into another meaningless ‘ism’. We see no divide between our personal ethics, social morality, and economic gain.
We’ll rest easy even if this ethical strength does not itself create a movement. All we are looking for is some change, even if not transformation in people’s lives.
There was another time when you had to give the people an ideological frame to fight inequity of any kind—the poor against hunger; and the middle urban class against the absurd callousness of governance. That is no longer so. The paradigm has shifted, for surely the better.

Beyond Commerce
In this search for new forms, BCIL is making a few firm forays that will mark the organization surely to be going beyond a mere enterprise, and beyond the conventional pale of commerce. BCIL has clearly shown that you can defy the concept of profit motive as the basic prerequisite for all enterprise.
This is a time somewhat momentous for us all at BCIL. We are sewing together a design team—for lack of a better word—that will examine many possibilities as we plod along. From addressing the travails of water-deprived communities in the ‘other India’ we all so conveniently ignore-- to the challenges of urban sustainability where we need solutions for the unbridled, nearly insane, growth that urban business and housing demands; from solutions for better management of water, energy, air and waste in hotels and resorts [see report, Helping Hotels Go Green, Page 10] in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Singapore, where we find a more receptive ear to the approaches that BCIL seeks not to compromise upon—to creating a whole new capacity for research and documentation of ancient traditional knowledge systems and skills; from helping scale up and replicate plans for providing water management skills to villages, to sensitizing farm practices. . . BCIL is carving directions that have little precedence but are sorely needed in a planet that is more vulnerable than ever before.
We’re of course aiming high—beyond our existing pool of resources and expertise. But that doesn’t faze us. We’ve always bootstrapped our resources to achieve against stiff odds. And we love every moment of our workday, as we vest meaning to our everyday lives.