Transitioning to a Sustainable Corporate World
When sustainability is viewed as being a matter of survival for your business, you can create massive change. If all industrial sectors adopt sustainable measures and enable their employees to do the same, then surely our planet’s health will blossom. The ninth Sustainable Development Goal by the United Nations states to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation. On the same lines, Corporate Citizen spoke to industries leaders on their perception about sustainability, how can corporates embrace sustainable measures, how is their organisation incorporating eco-friendly measures, and more. Read on!
Our corporate world can truly become eco-friendly
For me, sustainability is something where we can heal our planet using the existing resources without harming the environment. It is an unfortunate situation that people don’t think about their actions, and how it is affecting our planet. The only way out is turning to eco-friendly ways. Our corporate world can truly become eco-friendly when all stakeholders are on the same page. Corporations can incorporate more easily implementable steps to begin the transformation towards sustainability. To begin with, businesses, industries, SMEs, MSMEs, large-scale organisations, and others, can monitor their actions by-managing the industrial waste, encouraging anti-waste and eco-gestures like using more digital instead of paper, bringing in smart gadgets and eco-friendly equipment and office supplies, promote telecommuting, as it only helps to keep the atmosphere free of pollution. Charity begins at home, and in our organisation, we try our best to adhere to an eco-responsible lifestyle and practices. Our approach is to minimise wastage on every possible stage of food production, delivery, and to keep the carbon footprint to a minimum. The same attitude is carried in the kitchen with implementing smart ways to reduce wastage at different levels:
Food production: 50% reduction in using combustible fuel by using steam boilers which are primarily used to cook in bulk. Implementation of Liquid off Take System for full optimisation of LPG gas and reduces wastage.
Food wastage reduction: Better inventory management through tech-driven backend and efficient food production per batch, finally leading to 95% less food wastage.
Low carbon emission vehicle delivery system: Our logistics systems rely on tech-led systems that aid route predictability, indirectly helping in fuel management. We have invested in electric vehicles, electric scooters and three-wheelers that will have low to no carbon emissions.
Packaging: We have also invested in reusable packaging that will significantly reduce the effects felt by the usage of single-use plastic containers throughout the food industry.
In essence, I feel, every company should have goals of developing a sustainable future. The food industry has struggled to keep an eco-friendly approach in the past but that does not mean they should not try. Innovations are happening every day that can significantly help companies tackle the challenges and lead us to a cleaner and greener tomorrow.
-CHAITALI DAS ASSOCIATE,
Vice President-Marketing, Sprink Online
Glad to see corporates focus on sustainability
Let’s face it! We have only one planet to live on. On those lines, sustainability to me is all about caring for the environment and the planet that we live on. It is about preserving natural, social, and economic resources for the generations to come. Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) has gained its prominence over the decade and adopted as a core vision for entities. It’s a welcoming change that the corporates today focus on investing in sustainable developments and operational practices. The efforts majorly focus on achieving higher energy efficiency through renewable energy, decarbonisation, use of upcycling and recycling materials to aid reduction in waste, effective waste management methods, ethical governance, and most importantly, water stewardship for maximised conservation of water.
We have been Future First in its approach with real estate developments by placing health and social equity at the forefront since 1993. Embassy Services has invested much in renewable energy with a 200MW solar plant in Karnataka and rooftop solar provision at our IT/Business Parks. We have also adopted over 18 villages in North Bengaluru under the Ecogram initiative and invested in waste processing plants for sustainable processing of waste going to our landfills. Water conservation methods like rainwater harvesting, reuse of treated sewage water for ancillary purposes and bore recharge is common provision across all our developments. Encouraging greener transportation is another area that we have focused on-our developments are equipped with electrical charging stations, and we also work closely with public bus service and carpool service providers to bring people to our offices from across the cities thereby reducing our carbon emissions by large. Sustainable living should become the primary of living. That is the only way ahead for us to ensure that we preserve our planet and its resources for future generations. One must remember that there is always a better sustainable way of doing everything that we do-minute by minute.
-VINITHA KANNAMBROTH,
Head of Integrated Facility Management – South Region, Embassy Services Pvt. Ltd.
Being sustainable is every industry’s duty
Severe climate changes, massive deforestation, scarcity of natural resources, gas chamber like cities, wide disparity in the economic well-being of people are all indications that our development is not holistic and sustainable. We can no longer afford to be casual, rather we ought to ensure that our businesses and industries must adopt sustainable measures.
As per me, this is how industries can incorporate eco-friendly measures:
- Create an eco-friendly ethos by saving energy and saying no to single-use items and toxic products.
- Responsibly handling waste, resourcefully managing the element of water, accentuating on recycled products, and increasing dependencies on renewable energy sources.
- Sensibly handling the concept of ‘Going digital’.
- Take up more green initiatives
- Encourage frugality in consumption: Use less paper, minimal printing, less AC, shared resources like vehicles, offices, office assets, etc.
- Donate what you don’t need and spread awareness.
- Reduce, refuse, reuse, and recycle. Being sustainable is every industry’s duty. Writer Information as a group, has always advocated for development along with preserving the natural ecosystem. This was demonstrated in eco-structural designs at Gurgaon and Mahape facilities, preserving hundreds of acres of land at the Shilim Institute, hiring local people and local suppliers for social empowerment and many other such initiatives. We have undertaken the following measures which will benefit the ecosystem at large.
- Renewable energy: Commissioned rooftop solar plants under PPA agreement at Gurgaon (213 KW) and Navi Mumbai (64 KW) with a targeted savings of 25 lakhs on electricity bills.
- Energy savings: Lightings at all are facilities have been converted to LED.
- Water conservation: Instilled rainwater harvesting process at four of our facilities and we will be implemented at other facilities too.
- Ecology sustenance: We embarked on a native tree plantation and set up birdseed feeders at our facilities.
- Zero waste to landfill: As a part of the ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle’, in the financial year, we have shredded around 2200 tons of paper and sent it for pulping.
- E-waste management: Formulated an e-waste management policy and submitted it to the Corporate Compliance Team for approval. We are exploring the feasibility of getting NAID certification and getting into a joint venture with an established e-waste recycler to make e-waste disposal as a vertical stream. We recently completed degaussing or destruction of tapes of one of our clients through an authorised e-waste recycler. Every step counts, let us all-industries, corporates, and individuals commit ourselves to sustainable development and make our planet a better place.
-NAVIN SHUKLA,
Vice President, Head Service Excellence, Head West Geography, Writer Information
Running an eco-friendly business is a continuous process
The perks of responsibly co-existing in harmony are beyond imagination. And in all fairness, isn’t this what sustainability is about? It’s about how we can harmonise well and play our part in a complex and interdependent system. The corporate entity is a huge world. Millions of people’s livelihood depends on the industries. And they should be made aware of how our earth can benefit if we convert our corporate realm into sustainable living. Everybody is a stakeholder in a business; hence, everyone should be equally benefited in the ecosystem.
Change begins when corporates become aware of the term sustainability. The first step is just to understand all sustainable practices the organisation should follow and what impact it will have on our ecosystem. Only then do we know that we can make conscious decisions however small or big they might be. We should count the impact as an input to do business and not as a by-product.
Slowly and steadily our organisation is embracing sustainable measures—that means we are going back to our roots by supporting our farmers. Our raw materials are sourced directly from the farm gate. We have prioritised local sourcing and given access to small and marginal farmers. Setting up units in rural locations opens more opportunities for communities in the neighbourhood. They don’t have to travel away from their hometowns to find work and hence, reduces migration of the population. In turn, a more independent ecosystem gets built in the rural economy. For some of our products, we use eco-friendly and re-usable packaging like areca nut boxes. To sum up, I feel, being sustainable and incorporating eco-friendly measures in running a business is a long and continuous journey of experimenting and re-inventing. We at GO DESi, are constantly working on this consciously and at every step of our decision—we always ask ourselves is there a way we can do this better or more efficiently.
-RAKSHA KOTHARI,
Co-founder and Sourcing Head, Go DESi
Corporates should carpool to minimise C02 emission
In the true sense, I believe that sustainability is the ability to maintain the inherent quality of something for a long time. The ongoing advancements in technology and lifestyle changes are gradually leading to the depletion of natural resources. As climate change and pollution are taking the world by storm, people across the globe are shifting to sustainable practices to protect the environment. As a part of corporate social responsibility, there have been more initiatives and investments in green technology. To go green, companies can start by cutting on energy consumption, proper disposal of wastage, initiatives to reduce non-recyclable raw materials, and lowering emissions to reduce the carbon footprint. Gradually, some product-based companies are also adopting sustainable practices like zero-waste packaging.
And to add to all of this, companies and businesses should shift their dependencies to renewable sources. As more organisations are becoming climate-conscious, there is a gradual adoption of alternative energy sources like solar and wind. Moreover, there is a rise in sustainable transportation like electric mobility. Corporates can go for carpooling, electric scooters, etc., to minimise the carbon dioxide emissions in the air. Achieving sustainability and an environment-friendly lifestyle is a collective responsibility. By incorporating sustainable practices daily, we can create a positive impact on the environment.
At our workplace, we’ve always believed in sustainable practices to minimise the carbon footprint. We are in the process of implementing the green innovation initiative in our organisation. The idea is to move ahead to achieve our long-term goal of building an environment-friendly ecosystem. As a step ahead in this direction, we recently launched a ‘Karle Raho Se Yaariya’ campaign. This initiative is to instil the idea of sustainability in the younger generation. While reducing carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions with electric bikes, the campaign urges the citizens to plant trees and conserve our natural resources. We are moving towards sustainability step by step. By reducing wastage, carbon emissions, depletion of fuels, and conserving energy, we are taking conscious measures for a sustainable future. Moreover, these initiatives will minimise the triggers of climate change, reduce global warming, and help sustain our environment. Across the globe, the industry is bringing eco-friendly technologies and practices to reduce the burden on natural resources. It will undoubtedly preserve and protect the environment. In my opinion, sustainability is the way forward for a green and healthy planet.