Green technology

PoweringIndia through

renewables

September, 2011

Gearing India towards Sustainability

1SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the September issue of Sustainability Outlook!

Our theme this time is Gearing India towards sustainability. It is difficult to comprehensively articulate different facets of sustainability – it can best be felt through its effects. In this issue, we focus on the various drivers of the sustainability juggernaut – from policy directives shaping thought-leadership amongst Indian corporates on environmental, social and governance parameters; challenges and options for the Indian industry for their energy needs; and an understanding about the current state of the sustainability workforce and its preparedness in positioning Indian firms for success in the emerging green economy.

The Government continues to push the bar higher through a number of ambitious and forward thinking policy measures. The latest in line is the release of the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business, which aims to set the tone and context for disclosing performance on environmental, social and governance metrics.

The cover-story takes a look at these guidelines and presents a strategic assessment of the current disclosure and 'performance' levels of India Inc. on these parameters. Our feature interview in the same section presents the background behind these guidelines through conversations with members of the NVG Drafting Committee.

In our March issue, we raised the question as to how an organization can claim to be laying grounds for a successful sustainable business without taking into account access and 'cost' of resources they can plough back into their business (similar to capital planning undertaken by the firms). We hope these guidelines act as harbingers of change and catalyze innovation to realize on the potential offered by the sustainability challenge.

Another key announcement by the Central Government is the upcoming Bio-energy Mission to boost power generation from bio-mass, which is an abundantly available source of energy in India. This is amongst many steps undertaken in recent times to promote renewables as a key tenet to the energy security framework for the country. In this issue we touch upon several aspects and innovative applications based on renewables and associated clean and innovative technologies.

Clearly sustainability as a key dimension to the business world is here to stay. As India continues to tread on the sustainability path, it is important to ensure the industry capacity is aligned to the needs of the emerging green economy. Our Market Pulse section presents an insight into the current state of sustainability workforce and through the real life career stories of sustainability leaders in Indian corporates, we have tried to present insights into the success mantra in this space.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Sustainability Outlook. Please do send your feedback and thoughts on areas you would like us to cover for you. Please write to us at Editor@SustainabilityOutlook.in

L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I T O R

1SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the September issue of Sustainability Outlook!

Our theme this time is Gearing India towards sustainability. It is difficult to comprehensively articulate different facets of sustainability – it can best be felt through its effects. In this issue, we focus on the various drivers of the sustainability juggernaut – from policy directives shaping thought-leadership amongst Indian corporates on environmental, social and governance parameters; challenges and options for the Indian industry for their energy needs; and an understanding about the current state of the sustainability workforce and its preparedness in positioning Indian firms for success in the emerging green economy.

The Government continues to push the bar higher through a number of ambitious and forward thinking policy measures. The latest in line is the release of the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business, which aims to set the tone and context for disclosing performance on environmental, social and governance metrics.

The cover-story takes a look at these guidelines and presents a strategic assessment of the current disclosure and 'performance' levels of India Inc. on these parameters. Our feature interview in the same section presents the background behind these guidelines through conversations with members of the NVG Drafting Committee.

In our March issue, we raised the question as to how an organization can claim to be laying grounds for a successful sustainable business without taking into account access and 'cost' of resources they can plough back into their business (similar to capital planning undertaken by the firms). We hope these guidelines act as harbingers of change and catalyze innovation to realize on the potential offered by the sustainability challenge.

Another key announcement by the Central Government is the upcoming Bio-energy Mission to boost power generation from bio-mass, which is an abundantly available source of energy in India. This is amongst many steps undertaken in recent times to promote renewables as a key tenet to the energy security framework for the country. In this issue we touch upon several aspects and innovative applications based on renewables and associated clean and innovative technologies.

Clearly sustainability as a key dimension to the business world is here to stay. As India continues to tread on the sustainability path, it is important to ensure the industry capacity is aligned to the needs of the emerging green economy. Our Market Pulse section presents an insight into the current state of sustainability workforce and through the real life career stories of sustainability leaders in Indian corporates, we have tried to present insights into the success mantra in this space.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Sustainability Outlook. Please do send your feedback and thoughts on areas you would like us to cover for you. Please write to us at Editor@SustainabilityOutlook.in

L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I T O R

3SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Shaping a Green Collar Workforce in India:

Enhancing individual and institutional knowledge capacity

As India embarks on a path of sustainability, more than 10 million green jobs are expected to be created in the country over the next decade primarily owing to a number of ambitious and forward looking policy measures, emergence of renewables as a major power source and introduction of clean technologies in India.

Given this massive potential, it is critical that the workforce is well equipped to meet the challenges posed by the changing paradigms. In this context, India Carbon Outlook has launched a year long programme to identify skills gaps viz. the needs of the industry and define knowledge enhancements required to shape appropriate talent and manpower as corporates and their extended value chains imbibe sustainability interventions in their operations.

The programme entails a direction setting roundtable followed by regional/cluster-wise/sectoral workshops to define a comprehensive roadmap for bridging the skill gaps and establishing the demonstration tools and necessary ingredients to enable the industry to leverage the emerging potential.

Skill development in India traditionally has been conducted through two key structures- small formal structure and a large informal structure.

In the formal structure, there are institutions for higher technical education (colleges), vocational education in schools (post secondary), specialized institutions for technical training and apprenticeship training.

Despite a high potential for green collar occupations, the formal training scenario for the new and upcoming workforce is dismal. As a reference: (a) out of 1346 engineering colleges in India, only 52 colleges offer energy management as a course; (b) Out of the 4650 vocational training institutes, hardly any are focused on green technology related areas.

However this represents just part of the challenge - the unorganized workforce, with no formal structure for training and skill development, constitutes 93% of the total workforce and currently only a handful of programmes have been designed to align their skillsets to the requirements of the 'Green Economy'. Establishing an ecosystem for equipping this section of the workforce with requisite knowledge and tools is a pre-requisite for Indian firms to effectively participate in the green economy.

An important aspect in shaping this ecosystem is to build a comprehensive understanding on what constitutes green jobs in the Indian context. The concept of green jobs is dynamic as well as relative. There are often opposing views on what should ideally be considered a green job –almost all jobs created through environment related activities are clubbed together in the bucket of 'cleantech' or 'environmental industry', which is often misleading.

It is clear that in order to fully realize the potential offered by the sustainability bandwagon, the right kind of workforce with the right kind of skills needs to be identified and developed. Indian industry has a unique opportunity to lead the world and be seen as the symbol of growth and environment working in tandem.

As a first step the India Carbon Outlook roundtable of select stakeholders and industry members aims to establish a comprehensive understanding on the various dimensions of ‘green jobs’ as applicable to the Indian context. The outcomes of the deliberations from all the workshops, background research and discussions would be used to prepare an assessment report to identify the under-addressed areas where training is needed, the relevance of that area, identification of skill gaps and requirements/recommendations for developing effective green job training programs.

Sustainability Outlook looks forward to supporting this programme and enabling outreach and discussion with varied stakeholders on the different dimensions connected with this theme.

Transitioning into sustainability as a career: The perspectives of a hiring manager

The Sustainability MBA: What does it mean for global companies and the emerging green workplace?

Sustainability: The next major career destination

IN THIS ISSUE

Published by: cKinetics Consulting Services

Private Limited

Address: 708, Hemkunt Chambers,

89, Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110019Email: Editor@SustainabilityOutlook.in

Editorial team:

Upendra Bhatt

Roselin Dey

Pramita Sen

IN FOCUS

Responsible businessguidelines: A fact checkon India Inc.! 4

8

IN CONVERSATION

Sanjay ChoudharyTata Chemicals

14

Moving towards responsible businesses and building credibility

A bio-based economy for sustainable development

Renewable energy: Potential sustainability solution for industrial applications

Green technology- A tool to power India's sustainable growth

Off-grid solar PV- A high potential solution for rural electrification in India

A sunny future: how small bearings can make a huge difference in concentrated solar plants

Challenges of clean technology deployment in india's power sector

PERSPECTIVE

Sydney LoboTata Power

11

P.S. NarayanWipro Limited

19

16

28

31

34

36

38

MARKET PULSE

Sustainability Career Survey Snapshot

47

Virens (Latin for greening)'s flickr photostream

NVGs are aligned globally,yet are very Indianin their character

25

43

22

40

3SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Shaping a Green Collar Workforce in India:

Enhancing individual and institutional knowledge capacity

As India embarks on a path of sustainability, more than 10 million green jobs are expected to be created in the country over the next decade primarily owing to a number of ambitious and forward looking policy measures, emergence of renewables as a major power source and introduction of clean technologies in India.

Given this massive potential, it is critical that the workforce is well equipped to meet the challenges posed by the changing paradigms. In this context, India Carbon Outlook has launched a year long programme to identify skills gaps viz. the needs of the industry and define knowledge enhancements required to shape appropriate talent and manpower as corporates and their extended value chains imbibe sustainability interventions in their operations.

The programme entails a direction setting roundtable followed by regional/cluster-wise/sectoral workshops to define a comprehensive roadmap for bridging the skill gaps and establishing the demonstration tools and necessary ingredients to enable the industry to leverage the emerging potential.

Skill development in India traditionally has been conducted through two key structures- small formal structure and a large informal structure.

In the formal structure, there are institutions for higher technical education (colleges), vocational education in schools (post secondary), specialized institutions for technical training and apprenticeship training.

Despite a high potential for green collar occupations, the formal training scenario for the new and upcoming workforce is dismal. As a reference: (a) out of 1346 engineering colleges in India, only 52 colleges offer energy management as a course; (b) Out of the 4650 vocational training institutes, hardly any are focused on green technology related areas.

However this represents just part of the challenge - the unorganized workforce, with no formal structure for training and skill development, constitutes 93% of the total workforce and currently only a handful of programmes have been designed to align their skillsets to the requirements of the 'Green Economy'. Establishing an ecosystem for equipping this section of the workforce with requisite knowledge and tools is a pre-requisite for Indian firms to effectively participate in the green economy.

An important aspect in shaping this ecosystem is to build a comprehensive understanding on what constitutes green jobs in the Indian context. The concept of green jobs is dynamic as well as relative. There are often opposing views on what should ideally be considered a green job –almost all jobs created through environment related activities are clubbed together in the bucket of 'cleantech' or 'environmental industry', which is often misleading.

It is clear that in order to fully realize the potential offered by the sustainability bandwagon, the right kind of workforce with the right kind of skills needs to be identified and developed. Indian industry has a unique opportunity to lead the world and be seen as the symbol of growth and environment working in tandem.

As a first step the India Carbon Outlook roundtable of select stakeholders and industry members aims to establish a comprehensive understanding on the various dimensions of ‘green jobs’ as applicable to the Indian context. The outcomes of the deliberations from all the workshops, background research and discussions would be used to prepare an assessment report to identify the under-addressed areas where training is needed, the relevance of that area, identification of skill gaps and requirements/recommendations for developing effective green job training programs.

Sustainability Outlook looks forward to supporting this programme and enabling outreach and discussion with varied stakeholders on the different dimensions connected with this theme.

Transitioning into sustainability as a career: The perspectives of a hiring manager

The Sustainability MBA: What does it mean for global companies and the emerging green workplace?

Sustainability: The next major career destination

IN THIS ISSUE

Published by: cKinetics Consulting Services

Private Limited

Address: 708, Hemkunt Chambers,

89, Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110019Email: Editor@SustainabilityOutlook.in

Editorial team:

Upendra Bhatt

Roselin Dey

Pramita Sen

IN FOCUS

Responsible businessguidelines: A fact checkon India Inc.! 4

8

IN CONVERSATION

Sanjay ChoudharyTata Chemicals

14

Moving towards responsible businesses and building credibility

A bio-based economy for sustainable development

Renewable energy: Potential sustainability solution for industrial applications

Green technology- A tool to power India's sustainable growth

Off-grid solar PV- A high potential solution for rural electrification in India

A sunny future: how small bearings can make a huge difference in concentrated solar plants

Challenges of clean technology deployment in india's power sector

PERSPECTIVE

Sydney LoboTata Power

11

P.S. NarayanWipro Limited

19

16

28

31

34

36

38

MARKET PULSE

Sustainability Career Survey Snapshot

47

Virens (Latin for greening)'s flickr photostream

NVGs are aligned globally,yet are very Indianin their character

25

43

22

40

I N F O C U S

4 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 5SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

'Responsible Business'

Guidelines: A fact

check on India Inc.!

A growing concern amongst the investment community is that typical financial reports do not adequately capture all the risks and externalities of a firm and thus its true performance. Business valuations will differ if they reflected all the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks along with economic performance.

All stakeholders including investors, government and consumers are now putting pressure on companies and demanding a performance report of a company's activities to ensure these are not detrimental to environment, society or employees. As a step in this direction, Ministry of Corporate Affairs has recently released National Voluntary Guidelines for the Social, Environmental and

Aparna KhandelwalSenior Associate, cKinetics

Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVG-SEE) 2011.These guidelines have been formulated to encourage adoption of sustainability reporting and mainstream disclosure on environmental, social and governance metrics in India. NVG-SEE provides businesses a framework to enable them to move towards responsible decision making and urges them to adopt the 'triple bottom-line' approach.

The National Voluntary Guidelines consist of 9 core principles, namely:

Principle 1: Businesses should conduct and govern themselves with ethics, transparency and accountability

Principle 2: Businesses should provide goods and services that are safe and contribute to sustainability throughout their life cycle

Principle 3: Businesses should promote the well-being of all employees

Principle 4: Businesses should respect the interests of, and be responsive towards all stakeholders, especially those who are disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalized

Principle 5: Businesses should respect and promote human rights

Principle 6: Business should respect, protect, and make efforts to restore the environment

Principle 7: Businesses, when engaged in influencing public and regulatory policy, should do so in a responsible manner

Principle 8: Businesses should support inclusive growth and equitable development

Principle 9: Businesses should engage with and provide value to their customers and consumers in a responsible manner

Reporting Process under NVG-SEE

The guidelines can be adopted by all companies irrespective of their size or sector and are a unique Indian version of a reporting framework to address the needs of Indian stakeholders. Due to their universal applicability, a special section has been included in the draft NVG-SEE on the adoption of these guidelines by the resource constrained micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well to enable greater future business opportunities and to help them remain aligned to the strategic changes in the marketplace.

NVG-SEE is accommodative of companies who are already following an internationally accepted sustainability reporting framework. Such companies are not required to publish a separate report, but can map the 9 core principles of NVG to the disclosures made in their existing

sustainability/business responsibility reports. Companies who have decided to adopt the NVG but don't have the necessary capacity to furnish a full-fledged report can provide a statement of commitment to adoption of NVG and furnish primary details on activities undertaken in relation to these guidelines. Companies who would like to adopt NVG to the full extent can furnish reports detailing their performance on environmental, social and governance factors based on the suggested framework.

Current disclosure levels of BSE Sensex

Recently cKinetics initiated a strategic assessment of the current disclosure levels of India's leading companies across multiple sectors to gauge the current level of preparedness of India Inc. for sustainability reporting. As part of the work, the companies comprising the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex were reviewed for their current disclosure levels viz. the reporting framework suggested by the National Voluntary Guidelines for Social, Environmental and Economics Responsibilities of Business (NVG). These 30 companies account for INR 28,218 billion market cap (as on July 22, 2011) representing almost 42% of the total market cap of companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

In this study we calculated the disclosure score for all the 30 companies which constitute the BSE Sensex. Since NVGs have been formally adopted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to mainstream the subject of responsible business, we have used the framework suggested in the NVG to map the disclosure levels of Indian companies. The NVG framework has 36 parameters reflecting nine key principles related to responsible business practices.

NVG-SEE is

accommodative of

companies who are

already following

an internationally

accepted

sustainability

reporting

framework

PinkMoose's Flickr Photostream

Natural Step Online's Flickr Photostream

I N F O C U S

4 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 5SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

'Responsible Business'

Guidelines: A fact

check on India Inc.!

A growing concern amongst the investment community is that typical financial reports do not adequately capture all the risks and externalities of a firm and thus its true performance. Business valuations will differ if they reflected all the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks along with economic performance.

All stakeholders including investors, government and consumers are now putting pressure on companies and demanding a performance report of a company's activities to ensure these are not detrimental to environment, society or employees. As a step in this direction, Ministry of Corporate Affairs has recently released National Voluntary Guidelines for the Social, Environmental and

Aparna KhandelwalSenior Associate, cKinetics

Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVG-SEE) 2011.These guidelines have been formulated to encourage adoption of sustainability reporting and mainstream disclosure on environmental, social and governance metrics in India. NVG-SEE provides businesses a framework to enable them to move towards responsible decision making and urges them to adopt the 'triple bottom-line' approach.

The National Voluntary Guidelines consist of 9 core principles, namely:

Principle 1: Businesses should conduct and govern themselves with ethics, transparency and accountability

Principle 2: Businesses should provide goods and services that are safe and contribute to sustainability throughout their life cycle

Principle 3: Businesses should promote the well-being of all employees

Principle 4: Businesses should respect the interests of, and be responsive towards all stakeholders, especially those who are disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalized

Principle 5: Businesses should respect and promote human rights

Principle 6: Business should respect, protect, and make efforts to restore the environment

Principle 7: Businesses, when engaged in influencing public and regulatory policy, should do so in a responsible manner

Principle 8: Businesses should support inclusive growth and equitable development

Principle 9: Businesses should engage with and provide value to their customers and consumers in a responsible manner

Reporting Process under NVG-SEE

The guidelines can be adopted by all companies irrespective of their size or sector and are a unique Indian version of a reporting framework to address the needs of Indian stakeholders. Due to their universal applicability, a special section has been included in the draft NVG-SEE on the adoption of these guidelines by the resource constrained micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well to enable greater future business opportunities and to help them remain aligned to the strategic changes in the marketplace.

NVG-SEE is accommodative of companies who are already following an internationally accepted sustainability reporting framework. Such companies are not required to publish a separate report, but can map the 9 core principles of NVG to the disclosures made in their existing

sustainability/business responsibility reports. Companies who have decided to adopt the NVG but don't have the necessary capacity to furnish a full-fledged report can provide a statement of commitment to adoption of NVG and furnish primary details on activities undertaken in relation to these guidelines. Companies who would like to adopt NVG to the full extent can furnish reports detailing their performance on environmental, social and governance factors based on the suggested framework.

Current disclosure levels of BSE Sensex

Recently cKinetics initiated a strategic assessment of the current disclosure levels of India's leading companies across multiple sectors to gauge the current level of preparedness of India Inc. for sustainability reporting. As part of the work, the companies comprising the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex were reviewed for their current disclosure levels viz. the reporting framework suggested by the National Voluntary Guidelines for Social, Environmental and Economics Responsibilities of Business (NVG). These 30 companies account for INR 28,218 billion market cap (as on July 22, 2011) representing almost 42% of the total market cap of companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

In this study we calculated the disclosure score for all the 30 companies which constitute the BSE Sensex. Since NVGs have been formally adopted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to mainstream the subject of responsible business, we have used the framework suggested in the NVG to map the disclosure levels of Indian companies. The NVG framework has 36 parameters reflecting nine key principles related to responsible business practices.

NVG-SEE is

accommodative of

companies who are

already following

an internationally

accepted

sustainability

reporting

framework

PinkMoose's Flickr Photostream

Natural Step Online's Flickr Photostream

6 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 7SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Aparna Khandelwal is currently working as a Sr.

Associate at a sustainability consulting firm,

cKinetics. Having worked as an equity analyst

specializing in the renewable energy sector, she has

extensive experience in understanding and

analyzing the global clean energy sector. She has an

Economics background and holds a MBA degree in

finance.

place between the company and its stakeholders.

Environment

India has no mandatory environmental reporting for listed companies though the Companies Act (1956) requires companies to disclose details regarding energy conservation measures undertaken by them in their annual reports. 26 out of 30 companies surveyed have listed energy conservation measures adopted by them and the remaining 4 have explicitly stated in their annual reports that this parameter is not material to their business and hence not applicable to them. Though many companies report their total energy consumption, very few disclose the percentage of renewable energy used, if any. As is evident from the chart on the right, very few companies disclose the percentage of recycled materials used as input raw materials. Just about 50% of the sample companies typically provide details of efforts undertaken on reconstruction of bio-diversity and mitigation of adverse impacts of GHG emissions arising from their business operations and total water consumption.

Community engagement and customer value

All 30 companies in the Sensex do believe in inclusive growth and make adequate disclosures about community investment and development work undertaken by them on account of fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. Amongst the various principles elucidated in the NVG, inclusive growth is the only one for which there is 100% disclosure amongst the BSE-30 companies.

On the other hand, there is almost negligible disclosure on product labeling efforts including information regarding customer health and safety, method of use and disposal etc. However one needs to keep in mind that this parameter may not be material for all the companies.

Others

Disclosure levels are generally poor w.r.t. product life cycle impacts except regarding use of energy efficient technologies and manufacturing/service delivery processes.

Only one third of the companies studied provide details on the policy advocacy efforts undertaken by them and the platforms used.

Poor correlation between disclosure score and stock returns

Interestingly, there exists no correlation (correlation coefficient of ~ 0.051) between the disclosure levels of the 30 sensex companies and

Amongst the

various principles

elucidated in the

NVG, inclusive

growth is the only

one for which

there is 100%

disclosure

amongst the BSE-

30 companies

their stock returns as compared for the period April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. This poor correlation questions the need for the companies to move towards high disclosure on non-financial parameters.

Uncertainty prevails

Though the guidelines drafting committee has stated a business case for the adoption of NVG-SEE, there are still several uncertainties which need to be addressed.

- What is the readiness of Indian businesses to start disclosing on business responsibility?

- Are India investors interested in companies which fare well on ESG parameters?

- Who would be the early adopters of NVG-SEE and would there be any special incentives for such companies?

- How can the adoption process be facilitated? And what are the advantages for a company to adopt this framework?

The National Voluntary Guidelines are still voluntary and one would have to wait to see their uptake by India Inc. – clearly that would depend on the benefit companies find and whether truly a business case exists for adopting these guidelines.

Disclosure on environmental parametersThe data was collated from publically available information through company annual reports, sustainability reports and company websites. (It should be noted that the study has adopted the NVG-SEE framework as is and has not considered materiality of parameters with respect to different sectors.This implies that some parameters may not be relevant for all sectors and disclosure score of companies in certain sectors may not be accurately reflected.)

The disclosure score varies across a wide range for these 30 companies. HDFC Bank (19%) had the lowest disclosure score whereas Tata Motors (78%) and Wipro (78%) had the highest score, followed closely by ITC (75%). (It should be noted that till the most recent annual disclosure,

companies were not required to provide this data and that the responsible business guidelines were announced only in July 2011.)

Governance

From our study we found that typically Indian companies have a high disclosure level regarding governance issues. Almost all the 30 companies disclosed information about the governance structure, constitution of the board of directors, responsibilities of the board members as well as the sub-committees, internally developed code of conduct and ethics etc. However, while the frequency of the board meetings seem to be of a high order, it is not clear as to the extent the board reviews sustainability performance and/or sets guidelines for formulating sustainability strategies. Also, for most companies no information exists on mechanisms available to shareholders and employees to provide recommendations to the Board/Chief Executive.

Employee welfare and stakeholder engagement

The disclosure levels are not very high for parameters related to employees' well- being. Though almost all companies report their total

employee strength, hardly any mention is made of the split between permanent and contractual employees. Also, only 8 companies report the break- up of employees by gender and only 4 disclose the number of persons with disability who form a part of their workforce. More than 50% of the companies have provided details of training programs carried out during the year but a standard metric is not used for disclosing such information. There is a need to report information in a standardized format so as to make it comparable across companies. For eg: disclosures regarding training programs undertaken by a company can be made comparable by using metrics such as average training days per employee per annum. A little over 50% of the

companies studied make explicit mention of

observance of human rights in their operations. There is very poor disclosure w.r.t. wages and salaries of skilled and unskilled employees. In their disclosures, none of the 30 companies has reported any incidents of delay in payment of wages.

Stakeholder engagement is a mixed bag with half of the companies providing insight into their stakeholders and the nature of engagement with them. However, there is almost no disclosure about issues on which formal dialogue has taken

Disclosure Score = No. of parameters on which company discloses information

Total no. of parameters

Disclosure score of Sensex companies based on NVG-SEE framework

Disclosure on governance parameters

The NVG

framework has 36

parameters

reflecting nine key

principles related

to responsible

business practices

6 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 7SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Aparna Khandelwal is currently working as a Sr.

Associate at a sustainability consulting firm,

cKinetics. Having worked as an equity analyst

specializing in the renewable energy sector, she has

extensive experience in understanding and

analyzing the global clean energy sector. She has an

Economics background and holds a MBA degree in

finance.

place between the company and its stakeholders.

Environment

India has no mandatory environmental reporting for listed companies though the Companies Act (1956) requires companies to disclose details regarding energy conservation measures undertaken by them in their annual reports. 26 out of 30 companies surveyed have listed energy conservation measures adopted by them and the remaining 4 have explicitly stated in their annual reports that this parameter is not material to their business and hence not applicable to them. Though many companies report their total energy consumption, very few disclose the percentage of renewable energy used, if any. As is evident from the chart on the right, very few companies disclose the percentage of recycled materials used as input raw materials. Just about 50% of the sample companies typically provide details of efforts undertaken on reconstruction of bio-diversity and mitigation of adverse impacts of GHG emissions arising from their business operations and total water consumption.

Community engagement and customer value

All 30 companies in the Sensex do believe in inclusive growth and make adequate disclosures about community investment and development work undertaken by them on account of fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. Amongst the various principles elucidated in the NVG, inclusive growth is the only one for which there is 100% disclosure amongst the BSE-30 companies.

On the other hand, there is almost negligible disclosure on product labeling efforts including information regarding customer health and safety, method of use and disposal etc. However one needs to keep in mind that this parameter may not be material for all the companies.

Others

Disclosure levels are generally poor w.r.t. product life cycle impacts except regarding use of energy efficient technologies and manufacturing/service delivery processes.

Only one third of the companies studied provide details on the policy advocacy efforts undertaken by them and the platforms used.

Poor correlation between disclosure score and stock returns

Interestingly, there exists no correlation (correlation coefficient of ~ 0.051) between the disclosure levels of the 30 sensex companies and

Amongst the

various principles

elucidated in the

NVG, inclusive

growth is the only

one for which

there is 100%

disclosure

amongst the BSE-

30 companies

their stock returns as compared for the period April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. This poor correlation questions the need for the companies to move towards high disclosure on non-financial parameters.

Uncertainty prevails

Though the guidelines drafting committee has stated a business case for the adoption of NVG-SEE, there are still several uncertainties which need to be addressed.

- What is the readiness of Indian businesses to start disclosing on business responsibility?

- Are India investors interested in companies which fare well on ESG parameters?

- Who would be the early adopters of NVG-SEE and would there be any special incentives for such companies?

- How can the adoption process be facilitated? And what are the advantages for a company to adopt this framework?

The National Voluntary Guidelines are still voluntary and one would have to wait to see their uptake by India Inc. – clearly that would depend on the benefit companies find and whether truly a business case exists for adopting these guidelines.

Disclosure on environmental parametersThe data was collated from publically available information through company annual reports, sustainability reports and company websites. (It should be noted that the study has adopted the NVG-SEE framework as is and has not considered materiality of parameters with respect to different sectors.This implies that some parameters may not be relevant for all sectors and disclosure score of companies in certain sectors may not be accurately reflected.)

The disclosure score varies across a wide range for these 30 companies. HDFC Bank (19%) had the lowest disclosure score whereas Tata Motors (78%) and Wipro (78%) had the highest score, followed closely by ITC (75%). (It should be noted that till the most recent annual disclosure,

companies were not required to provide this data and that the responsible business guidelines were announced only in July 2011.)

Governance

From our study we found that typically Indian companies have a high disclosure level regarding governance issues. Almost all the 30 companies disclosed information about the governance structure, constitution of the board of directors, responsibilities of the board members as well as the sub-committees, internally developed code of conduct and ethics etc. However, while the frequency of the board meetings seem to be of a high order, it is not clear as to the extent the board reviews sustainability performance and/or sets guidelines for formulating sustainability strategies. Also, for most companies no information exists on mechanisms available to shareholders and employees to provide recommendations to the Board/Chief Executive.

Employee welfare and stakeholder engagement

The disclosure levels are not very high for parameters related to employees' well- being. Though almost all companies report their total

employee strength, hardly any mention is made of the split between permanent and contractual employees. Also, only 8 companies report the break- up of employees by gender and only 4 disclose the number of persons with disability who form a part of their workforce. More than 50% of the companies have provided details of training programs carried out during the year but a standard metric is not used for disclosing such information. There is a need to report information in a standardized format so as to make it comparable across companies. For eg: disclosures regarding training programs undertaken by a company can be made comparable by using metrics such as average training days per employee per annum. A little over 50% of the

companies studied make explicit mention of

observance of human rights in their operations. There is very poor disclosure w.r.t. wages and salaries of skilled and unskilled employees. In their disclosures, none of the 30 companies has reported any incidents of delay in payment of wages.

Stakeholder engagement is a mixed bag with half of the companies providing insight into their stakeholders and the nature of engagement with them. However, there is almost no disclosure about issues on which formal dialogue has taken

Disclosure Score = No. of parameters on which company discloses information

Total no. of parameters

Disclosure score of Sensex companies based on NVG-SEE framework

Disclosure on governance parameters

The NVG

framework has 36

parameters

reflecting nine key

principles related

to responsible

business practices

NVGs are aligned globally,yet are very Indian in their character

8 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 9SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

I N F O C U S

Ministry of Corporate

Affairs recently released

the National Voluntary

Guidelines on Social,

Environmental and

Economic Responsibilities

of Business (NVGs) for

corporate India.

Sustainability Outlook

spoke with two members

of the Guidelines Drafting

Committee (Viraf Mehta, a

social development expert

and Vikas Goswami,

Director- CSR at Microsoft)

to understand more about

the background and

future steps on the NVGs.

Viraf Mehta

Vikas Goswami

What was the thought behind formulating the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economical Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) in India?

Viraf Mehta - In 2008, the Prime Minister announced a Ten Point Charter for Inclusive Growth for Corporate India to ensure that our growth process is both inclusive and broad-based. In the meantime, the CII-UNDP India Partnership Forum came up with the Social Code for Business to help companies adopt a systematic approach to CSR with the essential ingredients of a 'business model'. In a nutshell, everyone was defining CSR their own way- there were too many definitions and this was conceptually problematic.

Hence, the first thought behind coming up with National Voluntary Guidelines was to respond to the need to evolve a common language and a framework for defining corporate social responsibility. The second key reason was that although there are global frameworks like GRI, Global Compact, ISO 26000 and OECD guidelines etc., the Government of India was very clear that it did not want to see a conceptual vacuum in India or guidelines which were almost unequivocally settled in the west.

With this in mind, while drafting the NVG we were not attempting to find a definition of CSR or corporate citizenship; instead we did the reverse. We wanted to find out the responsibilities of businesses and then we categorized these responsibilities as economic, environmental and social and created a separate category for ethics and governance. Since we are emerging as a global economy now, our task was to be cognizant of what is happening in the rest of the world and take the best of what we see to develop the guidelines. But at the principle level, the challenge was to identify the indicators specific to our circumstances here. Hence, the National Drafting Committee was constituted to formulate the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economical Responsibilities of Business which have since been endorsed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

During the national consultations for the NVG held in the month of May, what was the industry feedback?

Viraf Mehta - I think the corporate India sees the point because for the first time it's a national guideline and it is now a level playing field. From a content standpoint, 9 principles and core elements and 36 indicators provide a safe territory. There might be a request for more indicators and the suggestions can certainly be considered for inclusion but only after the current version of the guidelines has been implemented in the market. Corporate India has bought the rational for having these national guidelines, and now it is about the application.

The drafting committee was directed to provide suggestions on the uptake of these guidelines by businesses. The idea is to reach out to all the non-branded companies who have never undertaken sustainability initiatives before and get them to adopt these guidelines. I hope to see these voluntary guidelines actually evolving into a standard. But there are still concerns like: whether the guidelines should be mandatory or only voluntary or whether incentives are required to be provided for adopting these guidelines, etc. Certain recommendations on these lines have been provided by the Guidelines Drafting Committee.

What is the status of India Inc. with respect to sustainability reporting?

Vikas Goswami - Large companies are already engaged in sustainability reporting and they are keen to follow and understand more on the reporting side. But I wouldn't say that it is a norm across the board yet. Even before getting into the status of reporting, companies need to assimilate the various dimensions of sustainability and only then reporting will follow.

How are you convincing the early adopters of the NVGs? Would there be any preferential programs for early adopters versus adopters 5 years down the line?

Viraf Mehta - Many companies have already

adopted these guidelines without a need for additional convincing. But even the leaders haven't gone the full way. They may be lacking in certain parts of their business vertical, example being the supply chain or human rights. There are plenty of challenges even for the global companies- which these guidelines hope to help with. Regarding instituting incentives 5 years down the line as opposed to now – the idea was to provide a level playing field. Various companies in small cities like Kanpur may not even know about these Guidelines. Hence before we can start incentivizing, media communication and other forms of communication need to be effectively used to shape awareness amongst companies about these guidelines. The guidelines should be translated in state languages, be available on the internet, and should be accessible by everyone. Only then it makes sense to have a competitive advantage.

Vikas Goswami - The early adopters will be large companies who are already working on the sustainability continuum – they now have a framework to understand and put a structure around what they are doing in regards to sustainability. It will be a cross section of companies. There are no incentives available as of right now. But when the new committee is formed, and as we start getting more feedback, maybe some incentive ideas will be suggested. These are unlikely to be tax incentives, but it could very well be that companies following the NVGs are entitled to preferential procurement tariffs as suppliers to the Government. But there is nothing set in stone yet as we have to wait for the market feedback and also a new committee needs to be formed (since the last one was disbanded).

Who would be the members of the new committee?

Vikas Goswami - Now that the NVGs have been launched, the forming committee has been disbanded. As a part of the next step, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will have to first decide on what exactly they want – a more detailed or specific sector and /or size centric NVG. It is difficult to opinionate on who should be a part of this new committee, as it will differ based on what specific actions need to be undertaken further on the NVGs. For example – if the sector specific NVGs are to be formatted then sector

specialists have to be involved. Likewise, size specific NVGs will require organizations like

FSME.

How many approximate numbers of companies have

shown interest in adopting the NVGs?

Vikas Goswami - It is too early to tell. We have to give some time for India Inc. to learn about and get accustomed to the idea first.

In the initial meetings prior to the launch of the NVGs, the

interest in a number of companies has been apparent. But

the NVGs have just been released and are voluntary - so the market reaction

would also depend on the promotion of these guidelines, only then we will be able to actually start putting a number on the list.

How would the NVGs be promoted- through workshops/trainings/awareness camps?

Vikas Goswami - GIZ will be working with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on this matter and is already in the process of establishing a training center. The National Foundation for CSR founded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs are also looking into ways of training dissemination professionals who can go and operationalize the NVGs.

What kind of challenges lie ahead for the NVGs?

Viraf Mehta - There are different types of challenges that lie ahead. The first one is to get the civil society to start looking at these guidelines seriously- they should look at the content and not get stuck on whether guidelines are voluntary or mandatory. 99% of our Indian NGOs still operate as if business does not exist. Unless the civil society and the consumers equally get engaged in business decisions, incorporating these guidelines would be hard.

The second challenge is that of access. The guidelines are available only in English right now. It is just not a matter of translation into the vernacular languages. We have to work hard on promoting these guidelines to all the 640 districts whether through the internet, radio, television or cell phones. The guidelines need to reach the smallest level of business, and not be just limited to the metros. Thirdly, the balance amount of work that needs to be done should be made very clear. The time for a generic discussion with businesses is long over. Now we need to focus on sectoral needs of these guidelines and also the

The early adopters

will be large

companies who are

already working on

the sustainability

continuum – they

now have a

framework to

understand and put

a structure around

what they are doing

in regards to

sustainability

NVGs are aligned globally,yet are very Indian in their character

8 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 9SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

I N F O C U S

Ministry of Corporate

Affairs recently released

the National Voluntary

Guidelines on Social,

Environmental and

Economic Responsibilities

of Business (NVGs) for

corporate India.

Sustainability Outlook

spoke with two members

of the Guidelines Drafting

Committee (Viraf Mehta, a

social development expert

and Vikas Goswami,

Director- CSR at Microsoft)

to understand more about

the background and

future steps on the NVGs.

Viraf Mehta

Vikas Goswami

What was the thought behind formulating the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economical Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) in India?

Viraf Mehta - In 2008, the Prime Minister announced a Ten Point Charter for Inclusive Growth for Corporate India to ensure that our growth process is both inclusive and broad-based. In the meantime, the CII-UNDP India Partnership Forum came up with the Social Code for Business to help companies adopt a systematic approach to CSR with the essential ingredients of a 'business model'. In a nutshell, everyone was defining CSR their own way- there were too many definitions and this was conceptually problematic.

Hence, the first thought behind coming up with National Voluntary Guidelines was to respond to the need to evolve a common language and a framework for defining corporate social responsibility. The second key reason was that although there are global frameworks like GRI, Global Compact, ISO 26000 and OECD guidelines etc., the Government of India was very clear that it did not want to see a conceptual vacuum in India or guidelines which were almost unequivocally settled in the west.

With this in mind, while drafting the NVG we were not attempting to find a definition of CSR or corporate citizenship; instead we did the reverse. We wanted to find out the responsibilities of businesses and then we categorized these responsibilities as economic, environmental and social and created a separate category for ethics and governance. Since we are emerging as a global economy now, our task was to be cognizant of what is happening in the rest of the world and take the best of what we see to develop the guidelines. But at the principle level, the challenge was to identify the indicators specific to our circumstances here. Hence, the National Drafting Committee was constituted to formulate the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economical Responsibilities of Business which have since been endorsed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

During the national consultations for the NVG held in the month of May, what was the industry feedback?

Viraf Mehta - I think the corporate India sees the point because for the first time it's a national guideline and it is now a level playing field. From a content standpoint, 9 principles and core elements and 36 indicators provide a safe territory. There might be a request for more indicators and the suggestions can certainly be considered for inclusion but only after the current version of the guidelines has been implemented in the market. Corporate India has bought the rational for having these national guidelines, and now it is about the application.

The drafting committee was directed to provide suggestions on the uptake of these guidelines by businesses. The idea is to reach out to all the non-branded companies who have never undertaken sustainability initiatives before and get them to adopt these guidelines. I hope to see these voluntary guidelines actually evolving into a standard. But there are still concerns like: whether the guidelines should be mandatory or only voluntary or whether incentives are required to be provided for adopting these guidelines, etc. Certain recommendations on these lines have been provided by the Guidelines Drafting Committee.

What is the status of India Inc. with respect to sustainability reporting?

Vikas Goswami - Large companies are already engaged in sustainability reporting and they are keen to follow and understand more on the reporting side. But I wouldn't say that it is a norm across the board yet. Even before getting into the status of reporting, companies need to assimilate the various dimensions of sustainability and only then reporting will follow.

How are you convincing the early adopters of the NVGs? Would there be any preferential programs for early adopters versus adopters 5 years down the line?

Viraf Mehta - Many companies have already

adopted these guidelines without a need for additional convincing. But even the leaders haven't gone the full way. They may be lacking in certain parts of their business vertical, example being the supply chain or human rights. There are plenty of challenges even for the global companies- which these guidelines hope to help with. Regarding instituting incentives 5 years down the line as opposed to now – the idea was to provide a level playing field. Various companies in small cities like Kanpur may not even know about these Guidelines. Hence before we can start incentivizing, media communication and other forms of communication need to be effectively used to shape awareness amongst companies about these guidelines. The guidelines should be translated in state languages, be available on the internet, and should be accessible by everyone. Only then it makes sense to have a competitive advantage.

Vikas Goswami - The early adopters will be large companies who are already working on the sustainability continuum – they now have a framework to understand and put a structure around what they are doing in regards to sustainability. It will be a cross section of companies. There are no incentives available as of right now. But when the new committee is formed, and as we start getting more feedback, maybe some incentive ideas will be suggested. These are unlikely to be tax incentives, but it could very well be that companies following the NVGs are entitled to preferential procurement tariffs as suppliers to the Government. But there is nothing set in stone yet as we have to wait for the market feedback and also a new committee needs to be formed (since the last one was disbanded).

Who would be the members of the new committee?

Vikas Goswami - Now that the NVGs have been launched, the forming committee has been disbanded. As a part of the next step, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will have to first decide on what exactly they want – a more detailed or specific sector and /or size centric NVG. It is difficult to opinionate on who should be a part of this new committee, as it will differ based on what specific actions need to be undertaken further on the NVGs. For example – if the sector specific NVGs are to be formatted then sector

specialists have to be involved. Likewise, size specific NVGs will require organizations like

FSME.

How many approximate numbers of companies have

shown interest in adopting the NVGs?

Vikas Goswami - It is too early to tell. We have to give some time for India Inc. to learn about and get accustomed to the idea first.

In the initial meetings prior to the launch of the NVGs, the

interest in a number of companies has been apparent. But

the NVGs have just been released and are voluntary - so the market reaction

would also depend on the promotion of these guidelines, only then we will be able to actually start putting a number on the list.

How would the NVGs be promoted- through workshops/trainings/awareness camps?

Vikas Goswami - GIZ will be working with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on this matter and is already in the process of establishing a training center. The National Foundation for CSR founded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs are also looking into ways of training dissemination professionals who can go and operationalize the NVGs.

What kind of challenges lie ahead for the NVGs?

Viraf Mehta - There are different types of challenges that lie ahead. The first one is to get the civil society to start looking at these guidelines seriously- they should look at the content and not get stuck on whether guidelines are voluntary or mandatory. 99% of our Indian NGOs still operate as if business does not exist. Unless the civil society and the consumers equally get engaged in business decisions, incorporating these guidelines would be hard.

The second challenge is that of access. The guidelines are available only in English right now. It is just not a matter of translation into the vernacular languages. We have to work hard on promoting these guidelines to all the 640 districts whether through the internet, radio, television or cell phones. The guidelines need to reach the smallest level of business, and not be just limited to the metros. Thirdly, the balance amount of work that needs to be done should be made very clear. The time for a generic discussion with businesses is long over. Now we need to focus on sectoral needs of these guidelines and also the

The early adopters

will be large

companies who are

already working on

the sustainability

continuum – they

now have a

framework to

understand and put

a structure around

what they are doing

in regards to

sustainability

10 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 11SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

reporting framework. If after a year, the basic concept of these guidelines is being challenged, that will be a major problem. The guidelines are aligned globally, yet are very Indian in their character.

A lot of companies are reporting on CSR/ sustainability initiatives in their own way. But, it will be beneficial to have a registry of some kind with the IICA which will track the companies that formally endorse these guidelines and commit to implement them in their business practices. Clearly the companies will need some time to absorb and tweak their systems to integrate these guidelines.

As we have learnt from JRD Tata “Unless you aim for perfection, you will always fall short.” So it is important to set high standards, instead of keeping one's expectations mediocre. I want to see both large corporates as well as SMEs adopting these guidelines.

Viraf Mehta is a social anthropologist and is

amongst a very early group of professionals from

the 'social development sector' in India, to translate

this interest into a formal employment with the

private sector- Tata Steel from 1988-2001- where he

was responsible for overseeing several aspects of

one of India's best known models of corporate

community initiatives. He is also amongst the

earliest proponents in India of corporate-NGO

partnerships for development.

Vikas Goswami is the Lead Corporate Social

Responsibility, Microsoft, India. She has vast and

intensive experience of more than 18 years in the

area of CSR and has worked for and advised many

non-government and corpora te sec to r

organizations including MNCs and Indian

companies.

Unless you aim

for perfection,

you will always

fall short”

-JRD Tata

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

on new renewable technologies in the hydro, solar and wind generation scope and a significant amount of capacity addition will be undertaken in the renewable space as we endeavor to achieve the target of 25000MW.

Tata Power's first large scale solar PV plant of 3MW was commissioned recently; similar projects will be implemented to increase our renewable portfolio. We have also signed a Power Purchase Agreement with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited for a 25MW solar Photovoltaic (PV) plant in Mithapur in Gujarat.

What are the kind of renewable energy sources options that are being explored by Tata Power and why?

Tata Power's generation portfolio is being planned in a way that aims to greatly reduce overall carbon intensity. Various new technologies - upcoming and innovative, clean and renewable - are being evaluated and reviewed for their potential applicability in the business.

At present we are exploring a variety of technologies including Wind and Micro-Wind, Solar – thermal as well as PV (normal and concentrated), biomass/agri waste based power generation, hydro power, clean coal, integrated gasification and combined cycle, advanced geothermal and carbon capture using algae. Other technologies including ocean, tidal and wave energy being in a very nascent stage are also being tracked for future applications. Further, there are no specific policies limiting use of any particular type of technology.

Tata Power is working with different national institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT) in developing pilot and demonstration projects in the renewable resource power generation. We have already invested in developing two key technologies: one for cleaner

How does Tata Power define sustainability in its business construct?

Tata Power defines its sustainability based on the three core principles of sustainability. Based on these core principles Tata Power has developed its sustainability model, the objective of which is Leadership with Care. The basic elements under the objective are- Care for the Environment, Care of the Community, Care for our Customers and Care for our People. In order to achieve the objectives, various enablers have been defined which will help achieve the objective- new technologies, architecture of care, advocacy/mutual learning and search for excellence.

Does Tata Power have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

Tata Power has consciously decided to improve on the overall carbon footprint and therefore to achieve this - efforts in the form of renewable energy projects, improvement in energy efficiencies and awareness about sustainability within the company are being taken up on priority. Further, there is an annual target of carbon intensity and the organization takes different steps to meet the set target through the year.

Tata Power has plans to grow from 3,000 megawatt to 25,000 megawatt in another 8-9 years. According to plans, how much of this is going to be renewable energy?

Tata Power plans to reduce its carbon intensity by improving thermal efficiency in existing fossil fuel based plants by using clean coal technology for future plants (e.g. pre-dried brown coal in ultra super-critical plants with a carbon dioxide intensity of 700 kg/MWh instead of 1,200 kg/MWh for “as is” brown coal in sub-critical

Tata Power places special

emphasis on new

renewable technologiesSustainability Outlook

spoke to Sydney Lobo,

Head-Sustainability at

Tata Power to discuss the

sustainability initiatives of

the company, the plans of

integrating renewable

energy in their generation

targets and their efforts at

promoting rural

electrification.

Tom Raftery's Flickr Photostream

10 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 11SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

reporting framework. If after a year, the basic concept of these guidelines is being challenged, that will be a major problem. The guidelines are aligned globally, yet are very Indian in their character.

A lot of companies are reporting on CSR/ sustainability initiatives in their own way. But, it will be beneficial to have a registry of some kind with the IICA which will track the companies that formally endorse these guidelines and commit to implement them in their business practices. Clearly the companies will need some time to absorb and tweak their systems to integrate these guidelines.

As we have learnt from JRD Tata “Unless you aim for perfection, you will always fall short.” So it is important to set high standards, instead of keeping one's expectations mediocre. I want to see both large corporates as well as SMEs adopting these guidelines.

Viraf Mehta is a social anthropologist and is

amongst a very early group of professionals from

the 'social development sector' in India, to translate

this interest into a formal employment with the

private sector- Tata Steel from 1988-2001- where he

was responsible for overseeing several aspects of

one of India's best known models of corporate

community initiatives. He is also amongst the

earliest proponents in India of corporate-NGO

partnerships for development.

Vikas Goswami is the Lead Corporate Social

Responsibility, Microsoft, India. She has vast and

intensive experience of more than 18 years in the

area of CSR and has worked for and advised many

non-government and corpora te sec to r

organizations including MNCs and Indian

companies.

Unless you aim

for perfection,

you will always

fall short”

-JRD Tata

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

on new renewable technologies in the hydro, solar and wind generation scope and a significant amount of capacity addition will be undertaken in the renewable space as we endeavor to achieve the target of 25000MW.

Tata Power's first large scale solar PV plant of 3MW was commissioned recently; similar projects will be implemented to increase our renewable portfolio. We have also signed a Power Purchase Agreement with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited for a 25MW solar Photovoltaic (PV) plant in Mithapur in Gujarat.

What are the kind of renewable energy sources options that are being explored by Tata Power and why?

Tata Power's generation portfolio is being planned in a way that aims to greatly reduce overall carbon intensity. Various new technologies - upcoming and innovative, clean and renewable - are being evaluated and reviewed for their potential applicability in the business.

At present we are exploring a variety of technologies including Wind and Micro-Wind, Solar – thermal as well as PV (normal and concentrated), biomass/agri waste based power generation, hydro power, clean coal, integrated gasification and combined cycle, advanced geothermal and carbon capture using algae. Other technologies including ocean, tidal and wave energy being in a very nascent stage are also being tracked for future applications. Further, there are no specific policies limiting use of any particular type of technology.

Tata Power is working with different national institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT) in developing pilot and demonstration projects in the renewable resource power generation. We have already invested in developing two key technologies: one for cleaner

How does Tata Power define sustainability in its business construct?

Tata Power defines its sustainability based on the three core principles of sustainability. Based on these core principles Tata Power has developed its sustainability model, the objective of which is Leadership with Care. The basic elements under the objective are- Care for the Environment, Care of the Community, Care for our Customers and Care for our People. In order to achieve the objectives, various enablers have been defined which will help achieve the objective- new technologies, architecture of care, advocacy/mutual learning and search for excellence.

Does Tata Power have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

Tata Power has consciously decided to improve on the overall carbon footprint and therefore to achieve this - efforts in the form of renewable energy projects, improvement in energy efficiencies and awareness about sustainability within the company are being taken up on priority. Further, there is an annual target of carbon intensity and the organization takes different steps to meet the set target through the year.

Tata Power has plans to grow from 3,000 megawatt to 25,000 megawatt in another 8-9 years. According to plans, how much of this is going to be renewable energy?

Tata Power plans to reduce its carbon intensity by improving thermal efficiency in existing fossil fuel based plants by using clean coal technology for future plants (e.g. pre-dried brown coal in ultra super-critical plants with a carbon dioxide intensity of 700 kg/MWh instead of 1,200 kg/MWh for “as is” brown coal in sub-critical

Tata Power places special

emphasis on new

renewable technologiesSustainability Outlook

spoke to Sydney Lobo,

Head-Sustainability at

Tata Power to discuss the

sustainability initiatives of

the company, the plans of

integrating renewable

energy in their generation

targets and their efforts at

promoting rural

electrification.

Tom Raftery's Flickr Photostream

12 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 13SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Tata Power's

generation

portfolio is being

planned in a way

that aims to

greatly reduce

overall carbon

intensity

coal and the other in the space of advanced geothermal power generation system. Small pilot projects are being implemented to demonstrate and evaluate the commercial applications.

Do you feel that smaller scale distributed energy systems make sense in a country like India?

70% of India's population comprises of rural households. If access to power has to penetrate into the entire country- distributed generation will be our best bet to address this issue. As distributed generation provides the liberty of scale, the output cost of the systems can be decided and accordingly a combination of renewable power sources can be deployed to provide energy to large number of households/ villages and other communities. Further distributed energy systems also reduce the cost of long distance transmission expenses and energy losses.

Is Tata Power also working on any projects on rural electrification to engage the bottom of the pyramid?

Tata Power has always been closely associated with rural communities as most of our hydro generation facilities are located outside city limits of Mumbai and Pune and close to the agricultural and rural communities. Tata Power has been evaluating biomass based community generation systems as the availability of biomass is readily

available in these areas.

Another concept we had worked on was that of a Green Village, where primary requirements in a village like power, sanitation and cooking fuel would be provided for by green solutions like renewable energy, eco-sanitation solutions and biogas/smokeless chulhas for cooking. This concept was evaluated but had to be abandoned due to some unforeseeable problems.

Tata Power has recently set up an innovative floating solar plant at Walwhan Lake near Lonavala. Can you tell us more about it?

The innovative floating solar plant at Walwhan is yet to be installed. The patented Liquid Solar Array (LSA) method uses traditional Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) technology - a lens and a small area of solar cells that tracks the sun throughout the day, like a sunflower. Floating the LSA on water addresses the requirement of active cooling of the CPV utilizing the water – this further reduces the need for expensive supporting structures to protect it from high winds. The lenses submerge in bad weather and the water also cools the cells which increases their efficiency and life-span.

A single unit can produce 135W and 100 units are planned to be installed in the pilot project, bringing the total capacity to 13.5kW. The technology effectively turns a dam into a very large storage battery, offering free solar storage and opportunity for improved water resource management. The technology can match the power output of a typical hydro dam using less than 10 percent of its surface area and supply an additional six to eight hours of power per day.

India has a large water resource and if just one percent of its 30,000 square kilometers of captured water is utilized to install these systems then the total generation of power from these systems will be equivalent to 15 large coal-fired power stations.

16 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Sydney V. Lobo began his career with Tata

Consultancy Services and then at Kirloskar

Consultants Limited. He joined Tata Power Company

Limited in December 2008 as Head – Sustainability. In

his present role, he is spearheading various aspects of

sustainability within the organization in terms of

cultural lifestyle changes and addressing the

challenge of climate change for the organization.

remains his forte.

Any other recent sustainability initiatives of Tata Power you would like to share with our readers?

Tata Power successfully commissioned a 60.4kW capacity solar rooftop project at its Corporate Centre in Mumbai. The system has been integrated with the grid and is also one of its kind as it uses smart-metering system to monitor the generation.

Unique horizontal axis wind turbines from Windtronics of 2kW capacity were purchased and installed at our Trombay generating station as also at our Hydro generating stations. The performance of these turbines is being monitored under specific conditions.

Two Solar-wind hybrid systems have been commissioned in the last financial year-one at the Trombay generating station and the other at the Mankhurd receiving station. Further a number of energy efficiency measures are underway across the organization to address the energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint.

In your opinion, how do you think India can truly move towards sustainable development?

Economic growth in India is seeing a dramatic rise in all quarters. The main sectors which have registered high growth include: agriculture,

electricity, hotels, transport and communication. These businesses can easily adopt sustainable practices, e.g. Power can be generated using renewable sources, transport can utilize bio-fuels, and similarly other industries can adopt sustainable practices. As the awareness about climate change and sustainability becomes more profound in the country, there are chances that the corporate world will pave the way for sustainable development in the country. Further, the awareness among citizens needs to be increased significantly about climate change which will lead to a change in mindset. This will also create a push from the citizens on the overall society to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.

The awareness

among citizens

needs to be

increased

significantly about

climate change

which will lead to a

change in mindset

Land Rover Our Planet's Flickr Photostream

www.howstuffworks.com

12 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 13SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Tata Power's

generation

portfolio is being

planned in a way

that aims to

greatly reduce

overall carbon

intensity

coal and the other in the space of advanced geothermal power generation system. Small pilot projects are being implemented to demonstrate and evaluate the commercial applications.

Do you feel that smaller scale distributed energy systems make sense in a country like India?

70% of India's population comprises of rural households. If access to power has to penetrate into the entire country- distributed generation will be our best bet to address this issue. As distributed generation provides the liberty of scale, the output cost of the systems can be decided and accordingly a combination of renewable power sources can be deployed to provide energy to large number of households/ villages and other communities. Further distributed energy systems also reduce the cost of long distance transmission expenses and energy losses.

Is Tata Power also working on any projects on rural electrification to engage the bottom of the pyramid?

Tata Power has always been closely associated with rural communities as most of our hydro generation facilities are located outside city limits of Mumbai and Pune and close to the agricultural and rural communities. Tata Power has been evaluating biomass based community generation systems as the availability of biomass is readily

available in these areas.

Another concept we had worked on was that of a Green Village, where primary requirements in a village like power, sanitation and cooking fuel would be provided for by green solutions like renewable energy, eco-sanitation solutions and biogas/smokeless chulhas for cooking. This concept was evaluated but had to be abandoned due to some unforeseeable problems.

Tata Power has recently set up an innovative floating solar plant at Walwhan Lake near Lonavala. Can you tell us more about it?

The innovative floating solar plant at Walwhan is yet to be installed. The patented Liquid Solar Array (LSA) method uses traditional Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) technology - a lens and a small area of solar cells that tracks the sun throughout the day, like a sunflower. Floating the LSA on water addresses the requirement of active cooling of the CPV utilizing the water – this further reduces the need for expensive supporting structures to protect it from high winds. The lenses submerge in bad weather and the water also cools the cells which increases their efficiency and life-span.

A single unit can produce 135W and 100 units are planned to be installed in the pilot project, bringing the total capacity to 13.5kW. The technology effectively turns a dam into a very large storage battery, offering free solar storage and opportunity for improved water resource management. The technology can match the power output of a typical hydro dam using less than 10 percent of its surface area and supply an additional six to eight hours of power per day.

India has a large water resource and if just one percent of its 30,000 square kilometers of captured water is utilized to install these systems then the total generation of power from these systems will be equivalent to 15 large coal-fired power stations.

16 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Sydney V. Lobo began his career with Tata

Consultancy Services and then at Kirloskar

Consultants Limited. He joined Tata Power Company

Limited in December 2008 as Head – Sustainability. In

his present role, he is spearheading various aspects of

sustainability within the organization in terms of

cultural lifestyle changes and addressing the

challenge of climate change for the organization.

remains his forte.

Any other recent sustainability initiatives of Tata Power you would like to share with our readers?

Tata Power successfully commissioned a 60.4kW capacity solar rooftop project at its Corporate Centre in Mumbai. The system has been integrated with the grid and is also one of its kind as it uses smart-metering system to monitor the generation.

Unique horizontal axis wind turbines from Windtronics of 2kW capacity were purchased and installed at our Trombay generating station as also at our Hydro generating stations. The performance of these turbines is being monitored under specific conditions.

Two Solar-wind hybrid systems have been commissioned in the last financial year-one at the Trombay generating station and the other at the Mankhurd receiving station. Further a number of energy efficiency measures are underway across the organization to address the energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint.

In your opinion, how do you think India can truly move towards sustainable development?

Economic growth in India is seeing a dramatic rise in all quarters. The main sectors which have registered high growth include: agriculture,

electricity, hotels, transport and communication. These businesses can easily adopt sustainable practices, e.g. Power can be generated using renewable sources, transport can utilize bio-fuels, and similarly other industries can adopt sustainable practices. As the awareness about climate change and sustainability becomes more profound in the country, there are chances that the corporate world will pave the way for sustainable development in the country. Further, the awareness among citizens needs to be increased significantly about climate change which will lead to a change in mindset. This will also create a push from the citizens on the overall society to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.

The awareness

among citizens

needs to be

increased

significantly about

climate change

which will lead to a

change in mindset

Land Rover Our Planet's Flickr Photostream

www.howstuffworks.com

14 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 15SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Tata Chemicals believes in

building tomorrow's

opportunities to create

true shareholder value

b. Tata Chemicals has five CDM projects registered with UNFCCC and four of them have already received CERs. All the four projects are demand side energy efficient efforts and the fifth one deals with supply side energy efficiency effort. The four projects have been the outcome of the efforts at our Ammonia-Urea fertilizer operation at Babrala which has been focused on energy efficiency right from the commissioning stage since 1994. At this plant, we have been able to reduce the energy intensity of product by more than 10% and the plant globally benchmarked for the energy consumption and productivity.

Does Tata Chemical have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

Tata Chemicals is working on long term sustainability goals with annual targets. On carbon footprint the goal is to achieve 20% reduction in carbon intensity of its products by 2020. Tata Chemicals has developed Green Manufacturing Index around energy consumption, water consumption, waste management and recycle and reuse of solid wastes with annual reduction targets. The performance is monitored at various review fora in the organization.

Tata Chemicals has identified what we call the FEW areas of focus — Food and fuel, Energy and environment, and Water and wellness. We were already engaged in food through Khet-Se, Grow More Pulses, Rallis and our fertiliser division.

In the area of energy and environment, Tata Chemicals is working on a new business line by focusing on flue gas treatment. Today we have a thriving business in Europe around Briskarb and the same business model is being used in the US. We are also engaged in the bio-fuels space and have invested in Jatropha and bio-ethanol facilities. Tata Chemicals has recently formed a JV with JOil Singapore for Jatropha seeds research. In addition, the Tata Chemicals Innovation Center in Pune is working on developing polymer electrolyte membrane hydrogen fuel cell.

In the area of water and wellness, the water purifier 'Swachh' is one of the key products. We are also looking at nutraceuticals, as part of our wellness initiative.

With its wide presence in various geographies like India, UK, USA and Kenya, Tata Chemicals will explore potential in renewable power like solar, wind, biomass and geothermal. Tata Chemicals is collaborating with Tata Power to commission a 25 MW Solar PV power project at its plant site in Gujarat this year.

Tata Chemicals

has identified what

we call the FEW

areas of focus —

Food and fuel,

Energy and

environment,

and Water

and wellness

As Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at Tata

Chemicals, Sanjay Choudhary handles the corporate

technology and sustainability initiatives of the company

around technical services, safety, health and

environment, climate change and CSR aspects. He has

published and presented technical papers in several

journals and conferences and represents Tata Chemicals

on several industry fora.

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

Do you think India can truly adopt an inclusive model of sustainable development, given the development vs. sustainability paradigm? How do you think this is truly achievable?

The real benefits of growth can be realized for the millions of poor and needy in India only through inclusive and sustainable development. Inclusive growth and resource management are two key aspects of sustainability that will have to go hand in hand instead of being pitched against each other in the development vs. sustainability conundrum. We are witnessing the seemingly visible booming economy and wealth generation in India, largely due to liberalization of the markets, however these short terms gains may shroud the long term aim of providing sustainable growth. That is achievable only through comprehensive stakeholder engagement with top down targets with good governance matched with architecture for bottom up response and corporate responsibility.

How does Tata Chemicals define sustainability in its business construct?

Tata Group has all along been guided by the founders' vision wherein sustainability has been an inherent tenet of the business in the broader context with stakeholder expectations as the primary drivers. Our businesses are driven by our commitment to UN Global Compact, Millennium Development Goals and our commitment to charters like Responsible Care, CII-Mission for Sustainable Growth and International Fertilizer Association's Protect and Sustain program. As part of our long term strategic planning process through the stakeholder engagement we have developed a list of sustainability issues which are material to our business – these are mainly focused on waste management, climate change and GHG emissions, natural resource consumption, employee investments, supply chain stewardship and community care.

How does Tata Chemicals make the business case for sustainability?

The business case for sustainability is being shaped by the integration of sustainability risks and opportunities in the strategy planning and strategy deployment process. This is being achieved by internalizing the four aspects namely managing today's business, engaging external constituencies, nurturing internal capabilities and building tomorrow's opportunities to create true shareholder value.

Tata Chemicals as a responsible enterprise has always laid emphasis on "Care for the environment". Like all other stakeholders, environment is also a key stakeholder for us towards whom all of us share a responsibility —"Caring and Nurturing". Environmental stewardship is deeply rooted in our sustainability philosophy and Tata Chemicals has actively worked towards improving its eco footprint, with the policy of "Reduce, Recycle and Re-use".

Can you tell us about any key sustainability program of Tata Chemicals?

Tata Chemicals continues to work on energy efficiency and eco-efficiency of its operations and also use of renewable energy is a key part of our operational strategy. In the process we also look for any benefits emerging from the CDM mechanism or other market mechanisms emerging in the country like the BEE-PAT and REC schemes.

a. 'Grey to Green' is the initiative started in 2008 as a response to the challenge of climate change by the Tata Companies to come under the umbrella of Tata Group Climate Change Steering Committee. This committee is coordinated by Tata Quality Management Services to work together for mapping the carbon footprint, evolving abatement strategy through a common methodology and sharing values and goals. Under this initiative we have established our carbon footprint—how much we are emitting. Tata Group comprises of over 100 companies. Five of our major companies emit 80% of the group's total emissions. These five also have established 'climate champions' well versed in identifying ways to lower the footprint and they are also responsible for helping other companies to assess their carbon footprint and develop abatement strategies. They are not only spreading the message in their own companies but also in our other companies.

Sustainability Outlook

spoke to Sanjay

Choudhary, Chief

Technology and

Sustainability Officer at

Tata Chemicals Limited to

understand the

organization's business

case for sustainability and

various sustainability

programs and initiatives.

Ron Sombilon Gallery's Flickr Photostream

Kin

gRo

bert

II's

Ph

oto

stre

am

14 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 15SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Tata Chemicals believes in

building tomorrow's

opportunities to create

true shareholder value

b. Tata Chemicals has five CDM projects registered with UNFCCC and four of them have already received CERs. All the four projects are demand side energy efficient efforts and the fifth one deals with supply side energy efficiency effort. The four projects have been the outcome of the efforts at our Ammonia-Urea fertilizer operation at Babrala which has been focused on energy efficiency right from the commissioning stage since 1994. At this plant, we have been able to reduce the energy intensity of product by more than 10% and the plant globally benchmarked for the energy consumption and productivity.

Does Tata Chemical have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

Tata Chemicals is working on long term sustainability goals with annual targets. On carbon footprint the goal is to achieve 20% reduction in carbon intensity of its products by 2020. Tata Chemicals has developed Green Manufacturing Index around energy consumption, water consumption, waste management and recycle and reuse of solid wastes with annual reduction targets. The performance is monitored at various review fora in the organization.

Tata Chemicals has identified what we call the FEW areas of focus — Food and fuel, Energy and environment, and Water and wellness. We were already engaged in food through Khet-Se, Grow More Pulses, Rallis and our fertiliser division.

In the area of energy and environment, Tata Chemicals is working on a new business line by focusing on flue gas treatment. Today we have a thriving business in Europe around Briskarb and the same business model is being used in the US. We are also engaged in the bio-fuels space and have invested in Jatropha and bio-ethanol facilities. Tata Chemicals has recently formed a JV with JOil Singapore for Jatropha seeds research. In addition, the Tata Chemicals Innovation Center in Pune is working on developing polymer electrolyte membrane hydrogen fuel cell.

In the area of water and wellness, the water purifier 'Swachh' is one of the key products. We are also looking at nutraceuticals, as part of our wellness initiative.

With its wide presence in various geographies like India, UK, USA and Kenya, Tata Chemicals will explore potential in renewable power like solar, wind, biomass and geothermal. Tata Chemicals is collaborating with Tata Power to commission a 25 MW Solar PV power project at its plant site in Gujarat this year.

Tata Chemicals

has identified what

we call the FEW

areas of focus —

Food and fuel,

Energy and

environment,

and Water

and wellness

As Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at Tata

Chemicals, Sanjay Choudhary handles the corporate

technology and sustainability initiatives of the company

around technical services, safety, health and

environment, climate change and CSR aspects. He has

published and presented technical papers in several

journals and conferences and represents Tata Chemicals

on several industry fora.

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

Do you think India can truly adopt an inclusive model of sustainable development, given the development vs. sustainability paradigm? How do you think this is truly achievable?

The real benefits of growth can be realized for the millions of poor and needy in India only through inclusive and sustainable development. Inclusive growth and resource management are two key aspects of sustainability that will have to go hand in hand instead of being pitched against each other in the development vs. sustainability conundrum. We are witnessing the seemingly visible booming economy and wealth generation in India, largely due to liberalization of the markets, however these short terms gains may shroud the long term aim of providing sustainable growth. That is achievable only through comprehensive stakeholder engagement with top down targets with good governance matched with architecture for bottom up response and corporate responsibility.

How does Tata Chemicals define sustainability in its business construct?

Tata Group has all along been guided by the founders' vision wherein sustainability has been an inherent tenet of the business in the broader context with stakeholder expectations as the primary drivers. Our businesses are driven by our commitment to UN Global Compact, Millennium Development Goals and our commitment to charters like Responsible Care, CII-Mission for Sustainable Growth and International Fertilizer Association's Protect and Sustain program. As part of our long term strategic planning process through the stakeholder engagement we have developed a list of sustainability issues which are material to our business – these are mainly focused on waste management, climate change and GHG emissions, natural resource consumption, employee investments, supply chain stewardship and community care.

How does Tata Chemicals make the business case for sustainability?

The business case for sustainability is being shaped by the integration of sustainability risks and opportunities in the strategy planning and strategy deployment process. This is being achieved by internalizing the four aspects namely managing today's business, engaging external constituencies, nurturing internal capabilities and building tomorrow's opportunities to create true shareholder value.

Tata Chemicals as a responsible enterprise has always laid emphasis on "Care for the environment". Like all other stakeholders, environment is also a key stakeholder for us towards whom all of us share a responsibility —"Caring and Nurturing". Environmental stewardship is deeply rooted in our sustainability philosophy and Tata Chemicals has actively worked towards improving its eco footprint, with the policy of "Reduce, Recycle and Re-use".

Can you tell us about any key sustainability program of Tata Chemicals?

Tata Chemicals continues to work on energy efficiency and eco-efficiency of its operations and also use of renewable energy is a key part of our operational strategy. In the process we also look for any benefits emerging from the CDM mechanism or other market mechanisms emerging in the country like the BEE-PAT and REC schemes.

a. 'Grey to Green' is the initiative started in 2008 as a response to the challenge of climate change by the Tata Companies to come under the umbrella of Tata Group Climate Change Steering Committee. This committee is coordinated by Tata Quality Management Services to work together for mapping the carbon footprint, evolving abatement strategy through a common methodology and sharing values and goals. Under this initiative we have established our carbon footprint—how much we are emitting. Tata Group comprises of over 100 companies. Five of our major companies emit 80% of the group's total emissions. These five also have established 'climate champions' well versed in identifying ways to lower the footprint and they are also responsible for helping other companies to assess their carbon footprint and develop abatement strategies. They are not only spreading the message in their own companies but also in our other companies.

Sustainability Outlook

spoke to Sanjay

Choudhary, Chief

Technology and

Sustainability Officer at

Tata Chemicals Limited to

understand the

organization's business

case for sustainability and

various sustainability

programs and initiatives.

Ron Sombilon Gallery's Flickr Photostream

Kin

gRo

bert

II's

Ph

oto

stre

am

17SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK16 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

There is a growing discussion and debate about how corporates- both publicly and privately held organizations- should perform in terms of their environment and social performance, besides creating value for the shareholders. The organizations around the world and their various stakeholders (employee, customer, consumer, community, government etc.) are aware of the need and benefits of socially responsible behaviour.

Conventionally, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is viewed as philanthropic activity outside the business mainstream and mainly related to “community related issues”. It is mainly undertaken for creating brand image and sometimes to oblige certain stakeholders and is generally seen to lack in strategic approach. A recent study done on the nature of CSR projects undertaken by Indian corporates indicates that most such efforts are related to education, HIV/AIDS, health, skill development and women empowerment. However, overall Social Responsibility or Corporate Social Responsibility needs to encompass:

- Organizational governance

- Human rights

- Labour practices

- Environment

- Fair operating practices

- Consumer issues

- Community involvement & development

However, recently emerging global issues like global warming, exploitation of natural resources, violation of human rights and widening gaps between rich and poor etc. are creating the need for socially responsible behavior and sustainable development.

The benchmark for a socially responsible organization is shifting from local and national to a worldwide dimension turning CSR into a public policy issue.

Indian context

India Inc. has traditionally engaged in social

welfare and development as a cause and purpose of their business existence. Personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and business icons like Jamshyd N. Godrej advocated the need for inclusive development and sharing wealth created with poorest of the poor.

Due to global change and emergence of United Nations Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) etc., more and more Indian companies are disclosing their performance (financial & non-financial) to their stakeholders and working towards making environment and social development operate in tandem with economic development. Such measures surely will go a long way in enhancing transparency and accountability in business operations and win stakeholder trust.

The Government of India through its various ministries and departments is also working towards framing legislative mechanisms for encouraging organizations to behave in a socially responsible manner. On July 8, 2011 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs issued the 'National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental & Economic Responsibilities of Business'. Recently the Department of Public Enterprises also laid down requirements for public sector undertakings (PSUs) to work towards CSR and Sustainable development.

Overall there are positive trends being seen in Indian business organizations as they move towards inclusive development, transparency, accountability and responsiveness but still there is a need for a unified legislative framework and cohesive partnerships between various institutions working in the field of CSR for the benefits of Indian organizations.

Connecting Sustainable Development and CSR

According to the Brundtland Commission, “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainable development is about businesses, development strategies, approaches and actions based on the triple bottom line viz. economic, environment and

Moving towards

Responsible business

and building credibility

P E R S P E C T I V E

Ganga Sharma

Country Head -

CSR & Sustainability

Services, TUV

CSR may be considered as a tool or a way of enabling business to move towards sustainable development

social responsibility – also called the 3-P (People, Planet and Profit) approach.

CSR definition by World Bank is “The commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development-working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve the quality of life, in ways that are good for business and good for development.”

According to ISO 26000, definition of CSR is “the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decision and activities on society and the environment, through transparency and ethical behavior that:

- contributes to sustainable development, including health and welfare of society

- takes into account the expectation of stakeholders

- is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior

- is integrated throughout the organization and practices in its relationship

This implies the willing inclusion by business of social and environmental concerns in the commercial (economic) activities and their relation with their stakeholders.

CSR correlates with the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development as defined by Brundtland and the model of the triple bottom line (Economic-Environment-Social or Profit-Planet-People). CSR concerns a business, a group of business, a network or a sector of activity.

Hence, CSR may be considered as a tool or a way of enabling business to move towards sustainable development.

CSR is a good way of doing business strategically and profitably.

The organization should integrate a triple bottom line approach in mainstreaming of the business and use CSR as a tool to achieve sustainable development, profitability and overall market competitiveness. Some of the practical examples are:

Environmental Aspects

- Reduce consumption of energy, water and other natural resources

- Reduce emission of hazardous substances from process, products and services delivery

- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

- Establish environment management system

Social Aspects

- Provide safe work environment leading to

reduction in work accidents

- Involve stakeholders in business decisions that affect them

- Provide necessary trainings and career development plan to employees leading to high motivation and productivity improvement

- Fuelling innovation in process & products through effective stakeholder consultation

- Promoting diversity and human rights

- Buy from local suppliers and strive to hire locally

The above listed examples certainly shape direct and indirect impacts on bottom line thus improving profitability. So it is incorrect to say that CSR is somewhat outside business and charity - rather it should be viewed and used as a strategic tool to make business good, ethical and profitable.

CSR drivers

There are multiple drivers for CSR creating positive pressure on organizations like:

- Stakeholder activism

- Political reforms

- Governance gaps

- Crisis response

- Market access

- Investment incentives

- Supply Chain within control and influence

- Socio-economic environment priorities

Current State in Indian organizations

There are some available standards to address individual dimension of triple bottom line e.g.

ISO 9001, know and meet customer requirementEconomic

ISO 14001, know and reduce impact on environment and meet regulationsEnvironment

OHSAS 18001, know and reduce occupationalhazards and risk to employees. SA 8000, Improve employee working condition and welfare

SocialResponsibility

Stake Holder Engagement

AccountAbility AA 1000, know, engage, measure and account of stakeholders

GRI-G 3.1, measure and report sustainability performanceto stakeholders

SustainabilityReporting

CSR is a good way of doing business strategically & profitably

17SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK16 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

There is a growing discussion and debate about how corporates- both publicly and privately held organizations- should perform in terms of their environment and social performance, besides creating value for the shareholders. The organizations around the world and their various stakeholders (employee, customer, consumer, community, government etc.) are aware of the need and benefits of socially responsible behaviour.

Conventionally, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is viewed as philanthropic activity outside the business mainstream and mainly related to “community related issues”. It is mainly undertaken for creating brand image and sometimes to oblige certain stakeholders and is generally seen to lack in strategic approach. A recent study done on the nature of CSR projects undertaken by Indian corporates indicates that most such efforts are related to education, HIV/AIDS, health, skill development and women empowerment. However, overall Social Responsibility or Corporate Social Responsibility needs to encompass:

- Organizational governance

- Human rights

- Labour practices

- Environment

- Fair operating practices

- Consumer issues

- Community involvement & development

However, recently emerging global issues like global warming, exploitation of natural resources, violation of human rights and widening gaps between rich and poor etc. are creating the need for socially responsible behavior and sustainable development.

The benchmark for a socially responsible organization is shifting from local and national to a worldwide dimension turning CSR into a public policy issue.

Indian context

India Inc. has traditionally engaged in social

welfare and development as a cause and purpose of their business existence. Personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and business icons like Jamshyd N. Godrej advocated the need for inclusive development and sharing wealth created with poorest of the poor.

Due to global change and emergence of United Nations Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) etc., more and more Indian companies are disclosing their performance (financial & non-financial) to their stakeholders and working towards making environment and social development operate in tandem with economic development. Such measures surely will go a long way in enhancing transparency and accountability in business operations and win stakeholder trust.

The Government of India through its various ministries and departments is also working towards framing legislative mechanisms for encouraging organizations to behave in a socially responsible manner. On July 8, 2011 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs issued the 'National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental & Economic Responsibilities of Business'. Recently the Department of Public Enterprises also laid down requirements for public sector undertakings (PSUs) to work towards CSR and Sustainable development.

Overall there are positive trends being seen in Indian business organizations as they move towards inclusive development, transparency, accountability and responsiveness but still there is a need for a unified legislative framework and cohesive partnerships between various institutions working in the field of CSR for the benefits of Indian organizations.

Connecting Sustainable Development and CSR

According to the Brundtland Commission, “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainable development is about businesses, development strategies, approaches and actions based on the triple bottom line viz. economic, environment and

Moving towards

Responsible business

and building credibility

P E R S P E C T I V E

Ganga Sharma

Country Head -

CSR & Sustainability

Services, TUV

CSR may be considered as a tool or a way of enabling business to move towards sustainable development

social responsibility – also called the 3-P (People, Planet and Profit) approach.

CSR definition by World Bank is “The commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development-working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve the quality of life, in ways that are good for business and good for development.”

According to ISO 26000, definition of CSR is “the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decision and activities on society and the environment, through transparency and ethical behavior that:

- contributes to sustainable development, including health and welfare of society

- takes into account the expectation of stakeholders

- is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior

- is integrated throughout the organization and practices in its relationship

This implies the willing inclusion by business of social and environmental concerns in the commercial (economic) activities and their relation with their stakeholders.

CSR correlates with the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development as defined by Brundtland and the model of the triple bottom line (Economic-Environment-Social or Profit-Planet-People). CSR concerns a business, a group of business, a network or a sector of activity.

Hence, CSR may be considered as a tool or a way of enabling business to move towards sustainable development.

CSR is a good way of doing business strategically and profitably.

The organization should integrate a triple bottom line approach in mainstreaming of the business and use CSR as a tool to achieve sustainable development, profitability and overall market competitiveness. Some of the practical examples are:

Environmental Aspects

- Reduce consumption of energy, water and other natural resources

- Reduce emission of hazardous substances from process, products and services delivery

- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

- Establish environment management system

Social Aspects

- Provide safe work environment leading to

reduction in work accidents

- Involve stakeholders in business decisions that affect them

- Provide necessary trainings and career development plan to employees leading to high motivation and productivity improvement

- Fuelling innovation in process & products through effective stakeholder consultation

- Promoting diversity and human rights

- Buy from local suppliers and strive to hire locally

The above listed examples certainly shape direct and indirect impacts on bottom line thus improving profitability. So it is incorrect to say that CSR is somewhat outside business and charity - rather it should be viewed and used as a strategic tool to make business good, ethical and profitable.

CSR drivers

There are multiple drivers for CSR creating positive pressure on organizations like:

- Stakeholder activism

- Political reforms

- Governance gaps

- Crisis response

- Market access

- Investment incentives

- Supply Chain within control and influence

- Socio-economic environment priorities

Current State in Indian organizations

There are some available standards to address individual dimension of triple bottom line e.g.

ISO 9001, know and meet customer requirementEconomic

ISO 14001, know and reduce impact on environment and meet regulationsEnvironment

OHSAS 18001, know and reduce occupationalhazards and risk to employees. SA 8000, Improve employee working condition and welfare

SocialResponsibility

Stake Holder Engagement

AccountAbility AA 1000, know, engage, measure and account of stakeholders

GRI-G 3.1, measure and report sustainability performanceto stakeholders

SustainabilityReporting

CSR is a good way of doing business strategically & profitably

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

wIPRO BELIEVES EDUCATION AND

SUSTAINABILITY ARE INTERLINKED

AND INTERDEPENDENT

The awareness

among citizens

needs to be

increased

significantly about

climate change

which will lead to a

change in mindset

management etc. Today we are India's number one organization on this front, and globally we have the highest score for green electronics rating. On the software side, we have a portfolio of IT solutions in this space for carbon and energy management. We also have a green data center practice. Apart from this, one of the significant steps we took a few years back was to diversify into the clean energy space. So we set up a division called Wipro Eco Energy to address the market space for solutions in clean energy. Wipro Eco Energy is a system integrator focused on solar, wind and biomass industry. Wipro has started working with suppliers on different dimensions of sustainability. For our green computing aspect of the business, we have been closely working with 50 Tier 1 suppliers from across the globe, mainly Taiwan and China on the Green PC journey.

c) The third dimension is focused on the large picture of advocacy and promoting the sustainability agenda. We work with the Government, industry networks like CII and NASSCOM, and also with research groups and academia. We have been part of education publications, CII Climate Change Council and BEE council. We have also indirectly worked with the Government and have also published a whitepaper for the Climate Change Secretariat about a year and a half back.

How does WIPRO define sustainability in its business construct?

The genesis of Wipro's sustainability program four years ago was from our earlier work and initiatives in the space of corporate citizenship in education. Due to the same reason, we started engaging on initiatives related to social issues and challenges. Businesses across the globe as well as in India have acquired a lot of power to influence action, and since businesses are a part of society, they should use this power for the benefit of the community. Wipro is trying to focus mainly on education and ecology. Education is a priority because for India it is the biggest scope multiplier and also linked to the deep rooted sustainability issues that need to be addressed. Ecology is a global issue that needs to be tackled at a systemic level. Irrespective of whether it has a business value to it or not, Wipro chooses to use its influence in a positive way to address the ecological issues.

What is WIPROs Eco Eye project? What are the objectives and aims of the project?

Eco-eye is a platform dedicated to showcase Wipro's eco-initiatives and track the path that Wipro has undertaken to enable eco sustainability. There are 3 broad dimensions to this program-one is internal and the other two are external.

a) In the internal dimension, the first pillar is 'minimizing WIPRO's ecological footprint (in terms of energy/carbon, water, waste and bio diversity)' and the second pillar is 'leveraging the large workforce of 1.25 lakh employees to act as agents of positive change'. WIPRO encourages its employees to be evangelists and ambassadors in their work and also be influencers in their own circles.

b) In the second dimension, we want to address our customer needs by conducting business in a more ecologically conscious way. Over the last few years we have embarked on the green computing journey from the perspective of energy star, toxic chemicals (ROHS), e-waste

SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

(as a concept) and auditing (as a way of measuring corporate governance), has widespread acceptance.

What do 'Responsible Business' practices mean for a company?

Good responsible business practices bring in the necessary transparency in the way a company is managed. It is in an organization's interest that it upholds the highest standards of ethics, transparency and accounting- all of which are the tenets of good corporate governance.

Increasingly, companies are adopting for third party assessments of their CSR /Corporate Sustainability / ESG Report, as the case maybe, which evidences their willingness towards public disclosure and proves their commitment to stakeholders. Such an approach benefits companies in more ways than one.

When companies go in for third party assessments, the evaluation result indicates the level:

- the organization (company) is directed, administered or controlled in a systematic way (overall management system)

- of implementation of the organization's mission, vision, policies, goals and processes to ensure current and future business performance

- the organization addresses business planning considering all forms of risk related to the business of the company

- of the organization's relationship with employees and other stakeholders

- the organization maintains high ethical standards and integrity

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

- of transparency and accuracy of the organization's financial reporting system (good indicator for integrity)

- the organization practices reporting in a reproducible, reliable and systematic way (overall management system)

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

- of the organization's behavior towards government, business partners and competitors concerning fair competition, anti-bribery and compliance to trade laws

- the organization manages its compliance to trade laws, fair competition and anti-bribery in a systematic way (overall management system)

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

However, these are individual standards and are implemented by organizations without shaping an internal integration with all applicable standards within the organization. There is a need to think strategically to engage diverse stakeholders for integrating and mainstreaming these aspects into the business process.

The business organizations need to build a foundation to grow in a sustainable and inclusive manner by aligning the triple bottom line principles into their business process through management systems framework.

Why validate responsible business practices?

Worldwide businesses are investing time and effort to undertake and demonstrate their 'responsible business behavior' and commitment while proving their responsibility to the society and environment at large. With rising stakeholder skepticism and scrutiny, companies, as responsible corporate citizens, have to maintain the highest standards of responsible business behavior.

In such a scenario, there is growing interest amongst corporates to use 'third party assessments' to measure their contributions to their stakeholders and communities.

Stakeholder expectations on responsible business behavior largely revolve around the belief in fundamental human values, increasing awareness of business practices and their impact and extended purchasing considerations. The question for stakeholders nowadays is not restricted to what goods are produced, their quality and price. They are also concerned about how the goods are manufactured- are they produced keeping in view the environment, health and safety and social and ethical issues? Businesses face pressure from all angles on issues of human values and they have to demonstrate their corporate citizenship behaviors. Stakeholders want proof that corporates are conducting business responsibly, honestly, fairly and considerately. For the new age

Innovation,Learning& Performance Improvement

SustainabilityManagementProcessess

Stakeholder,Inclusivity

Relationship & Management

CSR Report/ Corporate

SustainabilityReport

StakeholderValue

Most companies only

focus here, often missing

other 3 important

quadrants

Ganga C. Sharma is the

Country Head-CSR &

Sustainability Services,

India.

He is a Mechanical

Engineer with an

additional Post Graduate

Diploma in Operation

Management . He has a

total work experience of

over 16 years and has

served in both

manufacturing

establishments as well as

service industries. He has

also completed over 1500

man days of audits and

trainings in various type of

industries.

19SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK18

The benchmark for a socially responsible organization is shifting from local and national to a worldwide dimension turning CSR into a public policy issue

Sustainability Outlook spoke to P.S. Narayan, Vice President and Head of Sustainability Practice at Wipro Ltd. about the company's sustainability initiatives and the latest programs for employee education and awareness to help them become agents of change.

RambergMediaImages's Flickr Photostream

I N C O N V E R S A T I O N

wIPRO BELIEVES EDUCATION AND

SUSTAINABILITY ARE INTERLINKED

AND INTERDEPENDENT

The awareness

among citizens

needs to be

increased

significantly about

climate change

which will lead to a

change in mindset

management etc. Today we are India's number one organization on this front, and globally we have the highest score for green electronics rating. On the software side, we have a portfolio of IT solutions in this space for carbon and energy management. We also have a green data center practice. Apart from this, one of the significant steps we took a few years back was to diversify into the clean energy space. So we set up a division called Wipro Eco Energy to address the market space for solutions in clean energy. Wipro Eco Energy is a system integrator focused on solar, wind and biomass industry. Wipro has started working with suppliers on different dimensions of sustainability. For our green computing aspect of the business, we have been closely working with 50 Tier 1 suppliers from across the globe, mainly Taiwan and China on the Green PC journey.

c) The third dimension is focused on the large picture of advocacy and promoting the sustainability agenda. We work with the Government, industry networks like CII and NASSCOM, and also with research groups and academia. We have been part of education publications, CII Climate Change Council and BEE council. We have also indirectly worked with the Government and have also published a whitepaper for the Climate Change Secretariat about a year and a half back.

How does WIPRO define sustainability in its business construct?

The genesis of Wipro's sustainability program four years ago was from our earlier work and initiatives in the space of corporate citizenship in education. Due to the same reason, we started engaging on initiatives related to social issues and challenges. Businesses across the globe as well as in India have acquired a lot of power to influence action, and since businesses are a part of society, they should use this power for the benefit of the community. Wipro is trying to focus mainly on education and ecology. Education is a priority because for India it is the biggest scope multiplier and also linked to the deep rooted sustainability issues that need to be addressed. Ecology is a global issue that needs to be tackled at a systemic level. Irrespective of whether it has a business value to it or not, Wipro chooses to use its influence in a positive way to address the ecological issues.

What is WIPROs Eco Eye project? What are the objectives and aims of the project?

Eco-eye is a platform dedicated to showcase Wipro's eco-initiatives and track the path that Wipro has undertaken to enable eco sustainability. There are 3 broad dimensions to this program-one is internal and the other two are external.

a) In the internal dimension, the first pillar is 'minimizing WIPRO's ecological footprint (in terms of energy/carbon, water, waste and bio diversity)' and the second pillar is 'leveraging the large workforce of 1.25 lakh employees to act as agents of positive change'. WIPRO encourages its employees to be evangelists and ambassadors in their work and also be influencers in their own circles.

b) In the second dimension, we want to address our customer needs by conducting business in a more ecologically conscious way. Over the last few years we have embarked on the green computing journey from the perspective of energy star, toxic chemicals (ROHS), e-waste

SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

(as a concept) and auditing (as a way of measuring corporate governance), has widespread acceptance.

What do 'Responsible Business' practices mean for a company?

Good responsible business practices bring in the necessary transparency in the way a company is managed. It is in an organization's interest that it upholds the highest standards of ethics, transparency and accounting- all of which are the tenets of good corporate governance.

Increasingly, companies are adopting for third party assessments of their CSR /Corporate Sustainability / ESG Report, as the case maybe, which evidences their willingness towards public disclosure and proves their commitment to stakeholders. Such an approach benefits companies in more ways than one.

When companies go in for third party assessments, the evaluation result indicates the level:

- the organization (company) is directed, administered or controlled in a systematic way (overall management system)

- of implementation of the organization's mission, vision, policies, goals and processes to ensure current and future business performance

- the organization addresses business planning considering all forms of risk related to the business of the company

- of the organization's relationship with employees and other stakeholders

- the organization maintains high ethical standards and integrity

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

- of transparency and accuracy of the organization's financial reporting system (good indicator for integrity)

- the organization practices reporting in a reproducible, reliable and systematic way (overall management system)

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

- of the organization's behavior towards government, business partners and competitors concerning fair competition, anti-bribery and compliance to trade laws

- the organization manages its compliance to trade laws, fair competition and anti-bribery in a systematic way (overall management system)

- of the organization's performance when compared to its peers

However, these are individual standards and are implemented by organizations without shaping an internal integration with all applicable standards within the organization. There is a need to think strategically to engage diverse stakeholders for integrating and mainstreaming these aspects into the business process.

The business organizations need to build a foundation to grow in a sustainable and inclusive manner by aligning the triple bottom line principles into their business process through management systems framework.

Why validate responsible business practices?

Worldwide businesses are investing time and effort to undertake and demonstrate their 'responsible business behavior' and commitment while proving their responsibility to the society and environment at large. With rising stakeholder skepticism and scrutiny, companies, as responsible corporate citizens, have to maintain the highest standards of responsible business behavior.

In such a scenario, there is growing interest amongst corporates to use 'third party assessments' to measure their contributions to their stakeholders and communities.

Stakeholder expectations on responsible business behavior largely revolve around the belief in fundamental human values, increasing awareness of business practices and their impact and extended purchasing considerations. The question for stakeholders nowadays is not restricted to what goods are produced, their quality and price. They are also concerned about how the goods are manufactured- are they produced keeping in view the environment, health and safety and social and ethical issues? Businesses face pressure from all angles on issues of human values and they have to demonstrate their corporate citizenship behaviors. Stakeholders want proof that corporates are conducting business responsibly, honestly, fairly and considerately. For the new age

Innovation,Learning& Performance Improvement

SustainabilityManagementProcessess

Stakeholder,Inclusivity

Relationship & Management

CSR Report/ Corporate

SustainabilityReport

StakeholderValue

Most companies only

focus here, often missing

other 3 important

quadrants

Ganga C. Sharma is the

Country Head-CSR &

Sustainability Services,

India.

He is a Mechanical

Engineer with an

additional Post Graduate

Diploma in Operation

Management . He has a

total work experience of

over 16 years and has

served in both

manufacturing

establishments as well as

service industries. He has

also completed over 1500

man days of audits and

trainings in various type of

industries.

19SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK18

The benchmark for a socially responsible organization is shifting from local and national to a worldwide dimension turning CSR into a public policy issue

Sustainability Outlook spoke to P.S. Narayan, Vice President and Head of Sustainability Practice at Wipro Ltd. about the company's sustainability initiatives and the latest programs for employee education and awareness to help them become agents of change.

RambergMediaImages's Flickr Photostream

20 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 21SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

schools and colleges, and bring about deep-rooted systemic interventions in the curriculum. This is a national level program, where we are asking students to write a critical analysis paper on any one of the 9 themes of sustainability. These papers will be scored by an external independent jury and top 5 papers at the school and college level would be awarded prizes. This program is being run through our Wipro Education group.

these chapters. They undertake a lot of activities and programs to spread awareness among other employees, for example invite experts to talk, movie screenings, host events like Earth Day and National Environment Day etc. Apart from that community engagement and participation in Wipro's internal sustainability programs is a major part of these groups. Across the globe currently there are 10 chapters, with 7 of them being in India, and a total membership of over 4000 employees. Wipro also has extensive learning goals, whether through classroom or online sessions. For example in our Project Manager's Academy, we have a half day module entirely focused on sustainability.

We also have a new program called Earth IAM, which tries to converge the dimensions of education and sustainability. From our experience across these two dimensions, we have realized that in order to address the core problems of sustainability, changes need to be made in the curriculum contents and pedagogical systems followed in schools and colleges. There are many inter-connected facets to sustainability and the current educational framework, both at the school and higher education level, does not equip people appropriately to address sustainability the way it should be. So Wipro is trying to engage

What are some of the overall sustainability achievements of the company?

There has been 25% improvement in energy efficiency in the last 6 years due to adoption of green building standards based on LEED framework and 44% reduction in use of printing paper through effective automated controls and behavioral changes. In terms of improving water efficiency, 32% of water requirement is being met through water recycling and harvesting. For waste management, 4 biogas plants are being used to convert food waste to cooking fuel translating into a net reduction of 100 tons per annum.

Does WIPRO have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

We have targets on energy, carbon, water, and waste and bio diversity. For example we have a target of improving employee water consumption by 5% every year. For energy and carbon, we have a 5 year program. With 2008-09 as the base line year, we have set target till 2014-15 from a production stand point. The goals that have been set are primarily around the GHG intensity of the employees, since we are a very employee centric company. We have set targets to reduce the GHG intensity by 45% in respect to the baseline figure of 2008-09. Given the realities of the Indian market, in terms of regulatory assessment and clean energy purchases, we think that actions will take off in India in only a year or two from now. We have divided the GHG targets in Scope 1, 2 and 3 formats. For Scope 2 and 3, we are on track. Under Scope 1, we have added a lot of new business, especially under the consumer care sector which has led to additional GHG emissions. We are hoping to meet our Scope 1 targets within the next couple of years. Overall we are on track to meet our sustainability goals.

Does WIPRO engage its suppliers in any way on its sustainability drive?

For our Green PC journey, we have collaborated with 50 Tier 1 suppliers, especially from Taiwan and China in order to meet the goals. We are completely ROHS compliant. In order to achieve that, we had to work very closely with the suppliers, and understand each other. For other

suppliers, we have established a supplier code of conduct, which addresses fundamental issues like compliance on labor and human rights. We expect our suppliers to voluntarily follow these conducts, without a need for a mandate from our end.

Are tools like Risk Assessment or Life Cycle Assessment being used for any of the products manufactured at your facilities?

Primarily we are a service based company. The only tangible product that we have is the computers. We are starting a Life Cycle Assessment for our computers this year, but it would probably reach an age of maturity in a couple of years. We do have an overall enterprise risk assessment group. A Chief Risk Officer is heading this group which assesses all business and market risks. Within the last 2 years we have added climate change in the portfolio of the risk assessment group. In addition, we are also starting a third party external risk assessment exercise.

Wipro has recently been included in the US stock

exchange Nasdaq-100 Global Sustainability

Index. Any comment on that?

Wipro is very serious about transparency and disclosures. We invest enormous time and effort in reporting carbon,

sustainability or any other form of

disclosures.So it has been about what

Wipro has been doing over the years. Last year we

were in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Nasdaq 100

is another reflection to our commitment to transparent disclosures.

What kind of programs do you conduct for your employees and other stakeholders to make them more aware about sustainability measures in the office and community at large?

Three years ago when we started the Eco Eye program, we also started an employee chapter for climate change. The employee chapters are self-run by Wipro employees in different locations employees sharing a common interest in ecological sustainability come together to form

P.S. Narayan is the Vice President and Head –

Sustainability Practice at Wipro Ltd. Narayan has a

deep passion and interest in ecology, especially driven

by the belief that ecological sustainability and

business sustainability are closely interconnected. He

has been closely involved right from inception in

Wipro's sustainability charter which is based on the

underlying philosophy that large organizations must

take the lead in the battle against ecological

degradation and climate change.

There has been 25% improvement in energy efficiency in the last 6 years due to adoption of green building standards based on LEED framework

Wipro is trying to engage schools and colleges, and bring about deep-rooted systemic interventions in the curriculum

Sean MacEntee's Flickr Photostream

Dawnzy58's Flickr Photostream

Sean MacEntee Flickr Photostream

20 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 21SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

schools and colleges, and bring about deep-rooted systemic interventions in the curriculum. This is a national level program, where we are asking students to write a critical analysis paper on any one of the 9 themes of sustainability. These papers will be scored by an external independent jury and top 5 papers at the school and college level would be awarded prizes. This program is being run through our Wipro Education group.

these chapters. They undertake a lot of activities and programs to spread awareness among other employees, for example invite experts to talk, movie screenings, host events like Earth Day and National Environment Day etc. Apart from that community engagement and participation in Wipro's internal sustainability programs is a major part of these groups. Across the globe currently there are 10 chapters, with 7 of them being in India, and a total membership of over 4000 employees. Wipro also has extensive learning goals, whether through classroom or online sessions. For example in our Project Manager's Academy, we have a half day module entirely focused on sustainability.

We also have a new program called Earth IAM, which tries to converge the dimensions of education and sustainability. From our experience across these two dimensions, we have realized that in order to address the core problems of sustainability, changes need to be made in the curriculum contents and pedagogical systems followed in schools and colleges. There are many inter-connected facets to sustainability and the current educational framework, both at the school and higher education level, does not equip people appropriately to address sustainability the way it should be. So Wipro is trying to engage

What are some of the overall sustainability achievements of the company?

There has been 25% improvement in energy efficiency in the last 6 years due to adoption of green building standards based on LEED framework and 44% reduction in use of printing paper through effective automated controls and behavioral changes. In terms of improving water efficiency, 32% of water requirement is being met through water recycling and harvesting. For waste management, 4 biogas plants are being used to convert food waste to cooking fuel translating into a net reduction of 100 tons per annum.

Does WIPRO have any particular sustainability targets for 2011 for carbon, water or waste management? How much of it has been achieved so far?

We have targets on energy, carbon, water, and waste and bio diversity. For example we have a target of improving employee water consumption by 5% every year. For energy and carbon, we have a 5 year program. With 2008-09 as the base line year, we have set target till 2014-15 from a production stand point. The goals that have been set are primarily around the GHG intensity of the employees, since we are a very employee centric company. We have set targets to reduce the GHG intensity by 45% in respect to the baseline figure of 2008-09. Given the realities of the Indian market, in terms of regulatory assessment and clean energy purchases, we think that actions will take off in India in only a year or two from now. We have divided the GHG targets in Scope 1, 2 and 3 formats. For Scope 2 and 3, we are on track. Under Scope 1, we have added a lot of new business, especially under the consumer care sector which has led to additional GHG emissions. We are hoping to meet our Scope 1 targets within the next couple of years. Overall we are on track to meet our sustainability goals.

Does WIPRO engage its suppliers in any way on its sustainability drive?

For our Green PC journey, we have collaborated with 50 Tier 1 suppliers, especially from Taiwan and China in order to meet the goals. We are completely ROHS compliant. In order to achieve that, we had to work very closely with the suppliers, and understand each other. For other

suppliers, we have established a supplier code of conduct, which addresses fundamental issues like compliance on labor and human rights. We expect our suppliers to voluntarily follow these conducts, without a need for a mandate from our end.

Are tools like Risk Assessment or Life Cycle Assessment being used for any of the products manufactured at your facilities?

Primarily we are a service based company. The only tangible product that we have is the computers. We are starting a Life Cycle Assessment for our computers this year, but it would probably reach an age of maturity in a couple of years. We do have an overall enterprise risk assessment group. A Chief Risk Officer is heading this group which assesses all business and market risks. Within the last 2 years we have added climate change in the portfolio of the risk assessment group. In addition, we are also starting a third party external risk assessment exercise.

Wipro has recently been included in the US stock

exchange Nasdaq-100 Global Sustainability

Index. Any comment on that?

Wipro is very serious about transparency and disclosures. We invest enormous time and effort in reporting carbon,

sustainability or any other form of

disclosures.So it has been about what

Wipro has been doing over the years. Last year we

were in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Nasdaq 100

is another reflection to our commitment to transparent disclosures.

What kind of programs do you conduct for your employees and other stakeholders to make them more aware about sustainability measures in the office and community at large?

Three years ago when we started the Eco Eye program, we also started an employee chapter for climate change. The employee chapters are self-run by Wipro employees in different locations employees sharing a common interest in ecological sustainability come together to form

P.S. Narayan is the Vice President and Head –

Sustainability Practice at Wipro Ltd. Narayan has a

deep passion and interest in ecology, especially driven

by the belief that ecological sustainability and

business sustainability are closely interconnected. He

has been closely involved right from inception in

Wipro's sustainability charter which is based on the

underlying philosophy that large organizations must

take the lead in the battle against ecological

degradation and climate change.

There has been 25% improvement in energy efficiency in the last 6 years due to adoption of green building standards based on LEED framework

Wipro is trying to engage schools and colleges, and bring about deep-rooted systemic interventions in the curriculum

Sean MacEntee's Flickr Photostream

Dawnzy58's Flickr Photostream

Sean MacEntee Flickr Photostream

22 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 23SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

and helps to innovate on new process pathways to develop sustainable products. Bio-refineries can transform biomass derived from renewable raw materials into a wide range of sustainable commodities such as bio-ethanol, bio-plastics, bio-chemicals and ingredients for different industries. Biofuels produced will have significantly lower impact on the life cycle scale. Agriculture would become more sustainable with the extensive use of local organic fertilizers instead of synthetic ones. These organic fertilizers, the by-product of bio-fuel production, will provide a number of benefits compared to synthetic fertilizers. Waste management industry will change from a purely waste collecting service to a biomass production industry and this will in turn catalyze business opportunities as well as environmental opportunities. Biowaste is not simply left to degrade, but is refined into a number of high-value products and thus the nutrient run-off from waste is partly solved.

Societal Impacts

Economic development of rural areas is more easily achievable in a sustainable bio-based economy. Bio-based economy would create a number of jobs during its development and

Sustainability Pull

- Phenomenal scientific and technological advances in the Life Sciences

- Innovation budgets on rise

- Increases in energy demand, especially if combined with measures to reduce greenhouse gases, could create large markets for bio-fuels

- Need for social and demographic development

- Eco-conscious consumers

- Increasing per-capita income

- Rise in regulatory expectation

Bio-based economy and its impacts

The development of a bio-economy will affect a number of critical sustainability (environmental, social and economic) issues and create new opportunities in these domains.

Environmental Impacts

Bio-based economy will depend on biotechnology that helps to develop useful processes and products based on microbial, plant or animal cells, or their isolated enzymes, as catalysts. The use of biocatalysts increases industry efficiency

The industrial revolution has been very successful in providing us with an incredible number of consumer goods. This in many cases has been at a high cost to nature and to our natural resource base. Climate change and diminishing resources, such as oil, phosphate and other commodities, are driving a need to change the ways of production. The need to be more energy and material efficient is not dictated by environmental concerns alone, but rather by the threat to the supplies of these basic resources. Today the cost of compliance and risk of liabilities is increasing and countries across the world have recognized the need for sustainable solutions. Moreover, push for sustainable solutions by various NGOs is becoming increasingly common. With the new digital media making the world more transparent, the risks for brand and reputation are also on the rise. All these trends suggest the need to rethink the way the business and economy runs. A bio-based economy that relies on biotechnology and bio-based materials to shape sustainable products has the potential to carve a lasting solution. This will produce the next wave of innovation in products and services across a range of economic activities and transform the way people produce and consume in the coming decades.

Today, biotechnology is helping shape a new 'bio-based economy' comprising of a wide range of products and services consumed by us in our daily lives. From a macro-economic perspective, this entails a set of economic activities relating to the innovation, development, production and use of biological products and processes that will serve the world in a manner that they would no longer be wholly dependent on fossil fuels for energy and industrial raw materials. This new 'bio-based economy will have major socio-economic implications for the future society and major industries like agri-business, petroleum, timber, pulp and paper etc. All these industries will benefit significantly with the development of this bio-based economy. Infact the impacts are expected to have a spillover effect across several sectors. Its impact on the health care sector would be by way of development of innovative health bio-solutions and reduction of healthcare cost.

P E R S P E C T I V E

Improvement in the productivity of agriculture and industrial processes by reduction of emissions to air and water will enhance environmental sustainability.

A recent WWF report concludes that the full climate change mitigation potential of industrial biotechnology ranges between 1 billion and 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year by 2030, compared with a scenario in which no industrial biotechnology applications are available. Chemical companies are striving to embrace bio-based production to ensure their long-term sustainability, as volatile cost, performance demands and sustainability push from the market and regulators are fast affecting their bottom line. To remain competitive and grow, companies must seek out raw materials that stabilize their cost base and bring financial certainty. The development and stimulation of new industries in the bio-based economy will help create new jobs and thus positively impact the society at large.

The transition from the present petrochemical-based industry to the bio-based economy is not easy. The need for transition is driven by the convergence of a number of global and local sustainability pull and push factors.

Sustainability Push

- Concerns over the sustainability of an economy built on non-renewable resources

- The deterioration of natural biodiversity

- Higher costs of fossil fuels

- Security for supply of raw material for different industries

- CO2 reduction and climate change debates

- Increasing population

- Food supply constraint

- Demand for reversing the rapidly increasing healthcare costs

a BIO BASED ECONOMY FOR

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

To remain competitive and grow, companies must seek out raw materials that stabilize their cost base and bring financial certainity

Bedanga Bordoloi

Corporate Sustainability

Advisor

Novozymes

jurvetson's Flickr Photostream

USD

Ag

ov'

s Fl

ickr

Ph

oto

stre

am

22 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 23SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

and helps to innovate on new process pathways to develop sustainable products. Bio-refineries can transform biomass derived from renewable raw materials into a wide range of sustainable commodities such as bio-ethanol, bio-plastics, bio-chemicals and ingredients for different industries. Biofuels produced will have significantly lower impact on the life cycle scale. Agriculture would become more sustainable with the extensive use of local organic fertilizers instead of synthetic ones. These organic fertilizers, the by-product of bio-fuel production, will provide a number of benefits compared to synthetic fertilizers. Waste management industry will change from a purely waste collecting service to a biomass production industry and this will in turn catalyze business opportunities as well as environmental opportunities. Biowaste is not simply left to degrade, but is refined into a number of high-value products and thus the nutrient run-off from waste is partly solved.

Societal Impacts

Economic development of rural areas is more easily achievable in a sustainable bio-based economy. Bio-based economy would create a number of jobs during its development and

Sustainability Pull

- Phenomenal scientific and technological advances in the Life Sciences

- Innovation budgets on rise

- Increases in energy demand, especially if combined with measures to reduce greenhouse gases, could create large markets for bio-fuels

- Need for social and demographic development

- Eco-conscious consumers

- Increasing per-capita income

- Rise in regulatory expectation

Bio-based economy and its impacts

The development of a bio-economy will affect a number of critical sustainability (environmental, social and economic) issues and create new opportunities in these domains.

Environmental Impacts

Bio-based economy will depend on biotechnology that helps to develop useful processes and products based on microbial, plant or animal cells, or their isolated enzymes, as catalysts. The use of biocatalysts increases industry efficiency

The industrial revolution has been very successful in providing us with an incredible number of consumer goods. This in many cases has been at a high cost to nature and to our natural resource base. Climate change and diminishing resources, such as oil, phosphate and other commodities, are driving a need to change the ways of production. The need to be more energy and material efficient is not dictated by environmental concerns alone, but rather by the threat to the supplies of these basic resources. Today the cost of compliance and risk of liabilities is increasing and countries across the world have recognized the need for sustainable solutions. Moreover, push for sustainable solutions by various NGOs is becoming increasingly common. With the new digital media making the world more transparent, the risks for brand and reputation are also on the rise. All these trends suggest the need to rethink the way the business and economy runs. A bio-based economy that relies on biotechnology and bio-based materials to shape sustainable products has the potential to carve a lasting solution. This will produce the next wave of innovation in products and services across a range of economic activities and transform the way people produce and consume in the coming decades.

Today, biotechnology is helping shape a new 'bio-based economy' comprising of a wide range of products and services consumed by us in our daily lives. From a macro-economic perspective, this entails a set of economic activities relating to the innovation, development, production and use of biological products and processes that will serve the world in a manner that they would no longer be wholly dependent on fossil fuels for energy and industrial raw materials. This new 'bio-based economy will have major socio-economic implications for the future society and major industries like agri-business, petroleum, timber, pulp and paper etc. All these industries will benefit significantly with the development of this bio-based economy. Infact the impacts are expected to have a spillover effect across several sectors. Its impact on the health care sector would be by way of development of innovative health bio-solutions and reduction of healthcare cost.

P E R S P E C T I V E

Improvement in the productivity of agriculture and industrial processes by reduction of emissions to air and water will enhance environmental sustainability.

A recent WWF report concludes that the full climate change mitigation potential of industrial biotechnology ranges between 1 billion and 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year by 2030, compared with a scenario in which no industrial biotechnology applications are available. Chemical companies are striving to embrace bio-based production to ensure their long-term sustainability, as volatile cost, performance demands and sustainability push from the market and regulators are fast affecting their bottom line. To remain competitive and grow, companies must seek out raw materials that stabilize their cost base and bring financial certainty. The development and stimulation of new industries in the bio-based economy will help create new jobs and thus positively impact the society at large.

The transition from the present petrochemical-based industry to the bio-based economy is not easy. The need for transition is driven by the convergence of a number of global and local sustainability pull and push factors.

Sustainability Push

- Concerns over the sustainability of an economy built on non-renewable resources

- The deterioration of natural biodiversity

- Higher costs of fossil fuels

- Security for supply of raw material for different industries

- CO2 reduction and climate change debates

- Increasing population

- Food supply constraint

- Demand for reversing the rapidly increasing healthcare costs

a BIO BASED ECONOMY FOR

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

To remain competitive and grow, companies must seek out raw materials that stabilize their cost base and bring financial certainity

Bedanga Bordoloi

Corporate Sustainability

Advisor

Novozymes

jurvetson's Flickr Photostream

USD

Ag

ov'

s Fl

ickr

Ph

oto

stre

am

Economic growth is inextricably linked to energy. Energy is needed to run industries, mine and process materials, transport goods and people, and carry out activities in our daily life. Energy, primarily from fossil fuels, underlies modern industrial development and improvements in standards of living. However, this dependence on fossil fuels is creating both local environmental damage and contributing to changes in the global climate.

The process of development, maintaining high GDP and providing access to energy to un-served population, is a key factor influencing a huge increase in energy demand in India. Currently, India's total primary energy requirement is about 400 MTOE and a significantly large portion of it is generated from fossil fuels. The industrial sector consumes more energy and produces more emissions than any other sector of the economy. High import dependency on key fuels such as oil, gas and coal poses serious threat to country's energy security. Industry and manufacturing rely heavily upon natural gas and oil.

Government of India, under its climate change strategy, has committed to reduce carbon emission intensity by 20-25% by 2020 from 2005 levels undertaking the following: imposition of the fuel efficiency standards for vehicles; enactment of an energy conservation building code; reduction in the energy intensity of industrial activities; monitoring the state of the forests; and adoption of clean coal technologies. It has also set a target of having a 15% renewables component in the country's energy mix by 2020.

Virtually every function of industry uses energy, in the form of electrical or thermal energy. The industrial sector today consumes approximately 35% of total electricity generated in the country and about 34% of primary energy, mostly through fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas. Studies suggest a loss of about 6% of GDP due to power shortages or an approximately 7% decrease in the turnovers of Indian companies

due to power cuts. As a consequence, many industries have set up their own captive power plants or diesel generators in order to ensure their power supply. About 25,000 MW of diesel generation capacity exists within the Industry sector.

Renewable energy and their use for industrial applications

Adoption of renewable energy technologies along with the energy efficiency measures could provide

RENEWABLE ENERGY:POTENTIAL SUSTAINABILITYSOLUTION FOR INDUSTRIAL

APPLICATIONS

24 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 25SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

feedstock supplies, research and development, agriculture, the environment, and trade. All this is only possible if there is ongoing dedication and commitment of all stakeholders.

knowledge in doing so would become a valuable export product. The local character of bio-economic solutions creates the opportunity for producing local products: fuels, food, materials, etc.,the safety and quality of which is a benefit for future society. Bio-economy will impact the health sector by catalyzing low-cost health solutions.

Economic Impacts

The economic situation may be stabilized and improved if the industries become energy efficient and independent, and the export of the concept and expertise in developing bio-based solutions may become a new high-value product, improving the GDP .The possibility for new products, new services and expertise in resource efficiency will further add value to the economy.

Conclusion

The transition to bio-economy is already underway in many parts of the world, fuelled by massive investments and new policy measures. Bio-based economy offers India a unique opportunity to leverage its rich endowment in biological and human resources for sustainable development. Harnessing the potential of bio-economy will require coordinated policy action by governments to reap the benefits of the bio-technology revolution. Moreover these policies need to be coherent across many sectors, such as climate action, energy security, renewable

Anurag Mishra

Senior Project Officer,

GIZ Indo-German Energy

Programme (IGEN)

The author Mr. Bedanga Bordoloi is the Corporate

Sustainability Advisor with Novozymes A/s

-a biotech-based company, headquartered in

Denmark. The views expressed in this article are

solely those of the author, and do not necessarily

reflect those of the organization in which the

author is working or had worked previously.

Bio-based economy would create a number of jobs during its development and knowledge in doing so would become a valuable export product

P E R S P E C T I V E

Jan

ie.h

ern

an

dez5

5's

Flic

kr

Ph

oto

stre

am

Economic growth is inextricably linked to energy. Energy is needed to run industries, mine and process materials, transport goods and people, and carry out activities in our daily life. Energy, primarily from fossil fuels, underlies modern industrial development and improvements in standards of living. However, this dependence on fossil fuels is creating both local environmental damage and contributing to changes in the global climate.

The process of development, maintaining high GDP and providing access to energy to un-served population, is a key factor influencing a huge increase in energy demand in India. Currently, India's total primary energy requirement is about 400 MTOE and a significantly large portion of it is generated from fossil fuels. The industrial sector consumes more energy and produces more emissions than any other sector of the economy. High import dependency on key fuels such as oil, gas and coal poses serious threat to country's energy security. Industry and manufacturing rely heavily upon natural gas and oil.

Government of India, under its climate change strategy, has committed to reduce carbon emission intensity by 20-25% by 2020 from 2005 levels undertaking the following: imposition of the fuel efficiency standards for vehicles; enactment of an energy conservation building code; reduction in the energy intensity of industrial activities; monitoring the state of the forests; and adoption of clean coal technologies. It has also set a target of having a 15% renewables component in the country's energy mix by 2020.

Virtually every function of industry uses energy, in the form of electrical or thermal energy. The industrial sector today consumes approximately 35% of total electricity generated in the country and about 34% of primary energy, mostly through fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas. Studies suggest a loss of about 6% of GDP due to power shortages or an approximately 7% decrease in the turnovers of Indian companies

due to power cuts. As a consequence, many industries have set up their own captive power plants or diesel generators in order to ensure their power supply. About 25,000 MW of diesel generation capacity exists within the Industry sector.

Renewable energy and their use for industrial applications

Adoption of renewable energy technologies along with the energy efficiency measures could provide

RENEWABLE ENERGY:POTENTIAL SUSTAINABILITYSOLUTION FOR INDUSTRIAL

APPLICATIONS

24 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 25SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

feedstock supplies, research and development, agriculture, the environment, and trade. All this is only possible if there is ongoing dedication and commitment of all stakeholders.

knowledge in doing so would become a valuable export product. The local character of bio-economic solutions creates the opportunity for producing local products: fuels, food, materials, etc.,the safety and quality of which is a benefit for future society. Bio-economy will impact the health sector by catalyzing low-cost health solutions.

Economic Impacts

The economic situation may be stabilized and improved if the industries become energy efficient and independent, and the export of the concept and expertise in developing bio-based solutions may become a new high-value product, improving the GDP .The possibility for new products, new services and expertise in resource efficiency will further add value to the economy.

Conclusion

The transition to bio-economy is already underway in many parts of the world, fuelled by massive investments and new policy measures. Bio-based economy offers India a unique opportunity to leverage its rich endowment in biological and human resources for sustainable development. Harnessing the potential of bio-economy will require coordinated policy action by governments to reap the benefits of the bio-technology revolution. Moreover these policies need to be coherent across many sectors, such as climate action, energy security, renewable

Anurag Mishra

Senior Project Officer,

GIZ Indo-German Energy

Programme (IGEN)

The author Mr. Bedanga Bordoloi is the Corporate

Sustainability Advisor with Novozymes A/s

-a biotech-based company, headquartered in

Denmark. The views expressed in this article are

solely those of the author, and do not necessarily

reflect those of the organization in which the

author is working or had worked previously.

Bio-based economy would create a number of jobs during its development and knowledge in doing so would become a valuable export product

P E R S P E C T I V E

Jan

ie.h

ern

an

dez5

5's

Flic

kr

Ph

oto

stre

am

26 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 27SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

the concept is already in practice in several other countries. In India a leading cement manufacturer has already implemented this in two of its cement units and similar intervention is planned for other eight sites.

Wind

The wind power industry in the country has undergone a major transformation in the last couple of years. The growth in wind capacities was driven by energy-intensive industries investing in wind power for captive consumption to hedge their power cost. This has positioned India among world leaders in the wind energy. The short gestation periods for installation, increasing reliability and performance of wind turbines, policy framework allowing energy wheeling and open access, and attractive fiscal incentives have motivated the industries to invest in wind energy projects. Numbers of industries have established offsite wind projects and wheel power to their units located in different places through the national grid.

Solar

Solar energy, one of the most promising renewable technologies for industries can provide both direct thermal energy for process heat or electricity for various processes. A study by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under the Indo-German bilateral project ComSolar identified automobiles, dairy, electroplating, food processing, leather, pharmaceutical, pulp and paper and textile sectors as most promising industrial sectors for solar energy applications. Per the study, in the selected 10 sectors, solar energy could replace 0.62 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE) of conventional fuels each year. This amounts to about 8% of the total heat demand or 3% of total energy consumption in those selected sectors. The field audits in the sample units suggest the use of non concentrating solar thermal collectors for various applications which provide a good economic case, with commercially attractive rate of returns (IRR) and payback-times. Commercial viability of solar technologies improves for industries using furnace oil, coke or captive diesel based electricity. Despite some thrust given under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, adoption of solar technologies in industries has been limited so far mostly because of the high initial investment costs, space requirements, perceived risks in making major changes to the existing production processes systems etc.

The demand for renewable energy based power is set to grow with the increase in oil prices, widening of electricity demand supply gap,

a solution to address challenges emanating from carbon emissions as also help shape long term energy security etc. Renewable technologies such as biomass, wind, hydro and solar are the most applicable commercially available renewable technologies for industries. Despite all the advantages renewable energy technologies could provide for industries, their use so far has been relatively limited. The use of renewable technologies by industries in India has been driven by the economic incentives made available under the national policies or international mechanisms, availability of resources in near vicinities and in certain cases, thought leadership demonstrated by some industries. Currently biomass and wind constitute a major share of renewable energy in the industrial sector - this is also evident from the number of such projects registered under Clean Development Mechanism.

Biomass

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been promoting biomass power/cogeneration since the mid 1990s. MNRE has estimated that surplus agricultural residues can generate about 16,000 MW of grid quality power with the present available technologies. Biomass resources such as crop residues (rice husk), agro-industrial wastes (bagasse), poultry waste etc. have been predominantly used for generation of energy in the industries mainly through biomass gasification or direct combustion to meet their total / partial energy requirements. The biomass power projects in the country are largely private sector driven. Easy and cheap availability of biomass resources have helped industrial sectors such as sugar, paper and pulp, textiles, breweries, caustic soda plants, distilleries, paper and pulp, rice mills, fertilizers, petroleum, petrochemicals and food processing, etc. to exploit this opportunity. Biomass based projects have not only helped industries in meeting their own energy demands but also enabled realization of additional revenue stream from the surplus power supplied to grid at preferential tariffs. High capacity utilization factor for biomass based projects have resulted in improving their commercial attractiveness, providing a payback of as low as 1 year.

Another attractive application for biomass is in cement industry where agri-residue in addition to municipal solid waste is being used directly in combustion process in cement kilns replacing traditional fossil fuels. The opportunity to use waste as a fuel source also helps address the growing problem of municipal waste disposal. The use of waste as alternative fuel may appear as something new in the Indian context, however,

Despite all the advantages renewable energy technologies could provide for Industries, their use so far has been relatively limited

MNRE has estimated that surplus agricultural residues can generate about 16,000 MW of grid quality power with the present available technologies

Anurag Mishra has till recently been working

with German International Cooperation (GIZ) as

senior project officer, under Indo-German

Energy Programme (IGEN) and leading

“ComSolar”. A postgraduate in environment

planning, he has over 10 years of experience in

the field of climate change, energy and

sustainable development. Anurag has also

managed the UK government's Low Carbon

High Growth Programme in India. He has

worked with business, states and local

governments on climate change and

energy issues.

tightening of national and international regulatory structures on energy intensity or carbon emissions and technological advancement in renewable technologies. Biomass, wind and solar would continue to dominate among other renewable technologies. With the high potential wind sites (Class I and II) getting exhausted and the increased pressure on biomass availability, solar technologies would emerge as the leading renewable technology for industrial applications in future. The acceptance of renewable technologies would increase with the increase in their reliability towards enabling energy demands, especially with respect to efficiencies and storage. Successful demonstration projects and a more conducive policy environment would address the issues of awareness gap and lack of capacities within industries.

Renewable energy itself is an industry which has high employment potential across its value chain compared to the conventional power sector. In certain industrial sectors adoption of renewable energy also leads to improved competiveness in the markets where demand of low carbon products is high. Industries are very well poised to take advantages of renewable technologies for long term sustainability.

Per GIZ ComSolar project, solar energy could provide upto 8% of the total heat demand or 3% of total energy consumption in the selected ten (10) sectors

david.nikonvscanon's Flickr Photostream

26 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 27SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

the concept is already in practice in several other countries. In India a leading cement manufacturer has already implemented this in two of its cement units and similar intervention is planned for other eight sites.

Wind

The wind power industry in the country has undergone a major transformation in the last couple of years. The growth in wind capacities was driven by energy-intensive industries investing in wind power for captive consumption to hedge their power cost. This has positioned India among world leaders in the wind energy. The short gestation periods for installation, increasing reliability and performance of wind turbines, policy framework allowing energy wheeling and open access, and attractive fiscal incentives have motivated the industries to invest in wind energy projects. Numbers of industries have established offsite wind projects and wheel power to their units located in different places through the national grid.

Solar

Solar energy, one of the most promising renewable technologies for industries can provide both direct thermal energy for process heat or electricity for various processes. A study by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under the Indo-German bilateral project ComSolar identified automobiles, dairy, electroplating, food processing, leather, pharmaceutical, pulp and paper and textile sectors as most promising industrial sectors for solar energy applications. Per the study, in the selected 10 sectors, solar energy could replace 0.62 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE) of conventional fuels each year. This amounts to about 8% of the total heat demand or 3% of total energy consumption in those selected sectors. The field audits in the sample units suggest the use of non concentrating solar thermal collectors for various applications which provide a good economic case, with commercially attractive rate of returns (IRR) and payback-times. Commercial viability of solar technologies improves for industries using furnace oil, coke or captive diesel based electricity. Despite some thrust given under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, adoption of solar technologies in industries has been limited so far mostly because of the high initial investment costs, space requirements, perceived risks in making major changes to the existing production processes systems etc.

The demand for renewable energy based power is set to grow with the increase in oil prices, widening of electricity demand supply gap,

a solution to address challenges emanating from carbon emissions as also help shape long term energy security etc. Renewable technologies such as biomass, wind, hydro and solar are the most applicable commercially available renewable technologies for industries. Despite all the advantages renewable energy technologies could provide for industries, their use so far has been relatively limited. The use of renewable technologies by industries in India has been driven by the economic incentives made available under the national policies or international mechanisms, availability of resources in near vicinities and in certain cases, thought leadership demonstrated by some industries. Currently biomass and wind constitute a major share of renewable energy in the industrial sector - this is also evident from the number of such projects registered under Clean Development Mechanism.

Biomass

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been promoting biomass power/cogeneration since the mid 1990s. MNRE has estimated that surplus agricultural residues can generate about 16,000 MW of grid quality power with the present available technologies. Biomass resources such as crop residues (rice husk), agro-industrial wastes (bagasse), poultry waste etc. have been predominantly used for generation of energy in the industries mainly through biomass gasification or direct combustion to meet their total / partial energy requirements. The biomass power projects in the country are largely private sector driven. Easy and cheap availability of biomass resources have helped industrial sectors such as sugar, paper and pulp, textiles, breweries, caustic soda plants, distilleries, paper and pulp, rice mills, fertilizers, petroleum, petrochemicals and food processing, etc. to exploit this opportunity. Biomass based projects have not only helped industries in meeting their own energy demands but also enabled realization of additional revenue stream from the surplus power supplied to grid at preferential tariffs. High capacity utilization factor for biomass based projects have resulted in improving their commercial attractiveness, providing a payback of as low as 1 year.

Another attractive application for biomass is in cement industry where agri-residue in addition to municipal solid waste is being used directly in combustion process in cement kilns replacing traditional fossil fuels. The opportunity to use waste as a fuel source also helps address the growing problem of municipal waste disposal. The use of waste as alternative fuel may appear as something new in the Indian context, however,

Despite all the advantages renewable energy technologies could provide for Industries, their use so far has been relatively limited

MNRE has estimated that surplus agricultural residues can generate about 16,000 MW of grid quality power with the present available technologies

Anurag Mishra has till recently been working

with German International Cooperation (GIZ) as

senior project officer, under Indo-German

Energy Programme (IGEN) and leading

“ComSolar”. A postgraduate in environment

planning, he has over 10 years of experience in

the field of climate change, energy and

sustainable development. Anurag has also

managed the UK government's Low Carbon

High Growth Programme in India. He has

worked with business, states and local

governments on climate change and

energy issues.

tightening of national and international regulatory structures on energy intensity or carbon emissions and technological advancement in renewable technologies. Biomass, wind and solar would continue to dominate among other renewable technologies. With the high potential wind sites (Class I and II) getting exhausted and the increased pressure on biomass availability, solar technologies would emerge as the leading renewable technology for industrial applications in future. The acceptance of renewable technologies would increase with the increase in their reliability towards enabling energy demands, especially with respect to efficiencies and storage. Successful demonstration projects and a more conducive policy environment would address the issues of awareness gap and lack of capacities within industries.

Renewable energy itself is an industry which has high employment potential across its value chain compared to the conventional power sector. In certain industrial sectors adoption of renewable energy also leads to improved competiveness in the markets where demand of low carbon products is high. Industries are very well poised to take advantages of renewable technologies for long term sustainability.

Per GIZ ComSolar project, solar energy could provide upto 8% of the total heat demand or 3% of total energy consumption in the selected ten (10) sectors

david.nikonvscanon's Flickr Photostream

28 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 29SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

equipments and powering them all the time.

This is akin to the use of public transport over

private transport, which not only has a cost

implication, but is also environment friendly.

While the demand for power and other resources

keep increasing, one thing is clear: Reduction in

wastage of power in every walk of life is an

absolute necessity. There are many technology

organizations like ourselves, who build software,

equipments and devices that bring in automation

to reduce energy drain from desktop computers,

lighting, and air conditioning for various industry

verticals: solutions that help organizations

manage their building infrastructure with a

mission to limit the wasted power, presence

sensors that turn off and turn on air-conditioners,

lamps and other energy utilities

Every technological innovation has a trade off as

well. As long as a tradeoff does not cause a

bigger and more adverse environmental impact,

we should embrace it.

The flat screens have replaced the tubes in many

homes and work places - should we not wonder

what happened to all these electronic waste that

was discarded? May be tomorrow another flat

screen with a newer technological

advancement would replace the existing ones.

It is difficult to strike a balance though, but what

needs to be looked at is an innovation that can

last a few decades and not a few years.

Information technology has always been a

P E R S P E C T I V E

catalyst for greening and improving productivity,

but the technological advancement is so fast that

the chain of reduce, reuse and recycle within this

segment doesn't seem to be picking up. On one

hand, the current day technology is surely helping

the go green initiatives but the pace of the

technology change is poised to create a different

problem for the environment, and this aspect

needs to be plugged. This should be the focus for

the top technology researchers and their need to

collaborate and align their goals for

the future.

Nano technology looks to be a very

promising future for the areas of

information technology, energy and

environment. As this concept works

closely with the way nature has nurtured

itself scientifically, discovery and innovation

in this area is likely to significantly

influence the sustainability quotient.

Researchers in the areas of nano-

technology are striving hard to find ways

to leverage our understanding of

photosynthesis (ability of trees and plants

to harness the natural sunlight and

separate the hydrogen and oxygen

from water) to shape

close-loop feedback

systems. There is also

ongoing research to

find a replacement

to the conventional

silicon memory chip

based on molecules

and nano-particles.

Researchers are

working hard to

leverage the photosynthesis phenomenon to

identify ways for generating energy without any

impact whatsoever on the environment.

Information technology is surely helping this

research and in the very near future, probably we

will complete the quest that we have on hand.

This decade is crucial; the answers to such

questions will put the technological innovations

on track with the established mission of creating a

secure and a balanced environment for the

generations to come. This might sound straight

out of a science fiction but I am sure there will be

a day electronic devices are powered by nano-

particles.

The adoption of technology for reduction in

power consumption and clean development

mechanisms can bring down the demand for

power by approximately 15%. Coupled with the

promise of nano technology to help in the areas

of energy and environment, the environmental

gases to generate the required capacity of power

using thermal methods and clearly poses a huge

threat to the environment.

Alternative sources of energy generation using

solar and wind power are picking up on the

Indian front (India ranks 5th in Wind power

generation across the globe). However, to

substitute oil based power generation, biomass

based power generation and use of biofuels for

power generation has to be adopted across a

wider spectrum. These options are not only eco-

friendly and help in sustaining the growth, but

also have a strategic economic advantage in

generating new employment at the grass-roots.

The plug to stop the colossal waste of power is

important for India and the globe as a whole. It is

possible to reduce the demand for power by

adopting methods and technologies that can

reduce the consumption; it does takes a lot of

discipline and this is where technology can play

an important role with automation.

Information Technology has been a front runner

in this automation concept. Organizations are

quickly adopting leaner data centers,

virtualization and cloud computing. The concept

here is to get the best of productivity and reduce

the use (and in turn the overall cost) of power

hungry equipments. The Indian small and medium

business sector is poised for a big leap forward

given the market opportunity in the country.

Asking them to adopt and follow the IT practices

of yesteryears (typically large servers and huge IT

infrastructure) is not only heavy on the purse for

them, but is a waste of equipment and power.

Cloud computing has shown the way for these

enterprises and today these organizations can run

their business with a minimal IT infrastructure,

resting the burden of maintenance and huge

power costs which are apportioned across

multiple users.

Though the debate on whether cloud computing

is green or to what extent is still ongoing, one

thing agreed in general is the need for reducing

the number of people using individual hardware

Green technology -

a tool to power india’s

sustainable growthV.K.Kripanand,

Founder, See Beyond

Technologies

As long as a tradeoff does not cause a bigger and more adverse environmental impact, we should embrace it

Nano technology looks to be a very promising future for the areas of information technology, energy and environment

India, boasting about the world's second largest

population is not only poised to develop itself in

the next decade, but is also challenged on a

continuous basis to sustain its growth. Developed

nations have a distinct edge over India as they

have crossed several major hurdles of

accommodating sustainability and green

initiatives during the development phase. The

main challenge for India is to transform itself from

a developing nation to a developed nation taking

sustainability and Green technologies in

its stride.

Green technology has become an important

catalyst to help sustain growth. In every walk of

life, countries and corporations are trying to build

their growth story around the Green concepts.

Construction, transport, water, electricity and

food produce have always relied on natural

resources and today the challenge that developing

countries have is to help sustain these natural

resources for consumption today and for the

future.

Per India Vision 2020 report of the Planning

Commission, India is projected to require 1221 TW

of power and 781 billion cubic meters of water

for an estimated population of over 1.3 billion in

the year 2020.

So how is India gearing to this challenge in its

everyday life while maintaining the momentum on

the transformation? Let's start with addressing

the area of power requirement, which is one of

the key focus areas that this scribe works on.

The current demand of power and corresponding

supply is already imbalanced and there is an acute

shortage in every sector, be it agricultural,

commercial, industrial or residential demands.

The prediction for 2020 is quite alarming where

the total capacity demand- according to the

Planning commission report- has suggested that

over 2/3rd of the demand would have to be from

thermal sources. Alternative sources of energy

will still be gasping to catch up with the demand

unless a few radical steps are initiated. This has a

direct implication on the requirement of fuel and

j bar i 's Fl c Pho s re ms r e i kr to t a

28 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 29SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

equipments and powering them all the time.

This is akin to the use of public transport over

private transport, which not only has a cost

implication, but is also environment friendly.

While the demand for power and other resources

keep increasing, one thing is clear: Reduction in

wastage of power in every walk of life is an

absolute necessity. There are many technology

organizations like ourselves, who build software,

equipments and devices that bring in automation

to reduce energy drain from desktop computers,

lighting, and air conditioning for various industry

verticals: solutions that help organizations

manage their building infrastructure with a

mission to limit the wasted power, presence

sensors that turn off and turn on air-conditioners,

lamps and other energy utilities

Every technological innovation has a trade off as

well. As long as a tradeoff does not cause a

bigger and more adverse environmental impact,

we should embrace it.

The flat screens have replaced the tubes in many

homes and work places - should we not wonder

what happened to all these electronic waste that

was discarded? May be tomorrow another flat

screen with a newer technological

advancement would replace the existing ones.

It is difficult to strike a balance though, but what

needs to be looked at is an innovation that can

last a few decades and not a few years.

Information technology has always been a

P E R S P E C T I V E

catalyst for greening and improving productivity,

but the technological advancement is so fast that

the chain of reduce, reuse and recycle within this

segment doesn't seem to be picking up. On one

hand, the current day technology is surely helping

the go green initiatives but the pace of the

technology change is poised to create a different

problem for the environment, and this aspect

needs to be plugged. This should be the focus for

the top technology researchers and their need to

collaborate and align their goals for

the future.

Nano technology looks to be a very

promising future for the areas of

information technology, energy and

environment. As this concept works

closely with the way nature has nurtured

itself scientifically, discovery and innovation

in this area is likely to significantly

influence the sustainability quotient.

Researchers in the areas of nano-

technology are striving hard to find ways

to leverage our understanding of

photosynthesis (ability of trees and plants

to harness the natural sunlight and

separate the hydrogen and oxygen

from water) to shape

close-loop feedback

systems. There is also

ongoing research to

find a replacement

to the conventional

silicon memory chip

based on molecules

and nano-particles.

Researchers are

working hard to

leverage the photosynthesis phenomenon to

identify ways for generating energy without any

impact whatsoever on the environment.

Information technology is surely helping this

research and in the very near future, probably we

will complete the quest that we have on hand.

This decade is crucial; the answers to such

questions will put the technological innovations

on track with the established mission of creating a

secure and a balanced environment for the

generations to come. This might sound straight

out of a science fiction but I am sure there will be

a day electronic devices are powered by nano-

particles.

The adoption of technology for reduction in

power consumption and clean development

mechanisms can bring down the demand for

power by approximately 15%. Coupled with the

promise of nano technology to help in the areas

of energy and environment, the environmental

gases to generate the required capacity of power

using thermal methods and clearly poses a huge

threat to the environment.

Alternative sources of energy generation using

solar and wind power are picking up on the

Indian front (India ranks 5th in Wind power

generation across the globe). However, to

substitute oil based power generation, biomass

based power generation and use of biofuels for

power generation has to be adopted across a

wider spectrum. These options are not only eco-

friendly and help in sustaining the growth, but

also have a strategic economic advantage in

generating new employment at the grass-roots.

The plug to stop the colossal waste of power is

important for India and the globe as a whole. It is

possible to reduce the demand for power by

adopting methods and technologies that can

reduce the consumption; it does takes a lot of

discipline and this is where technology can play

an important role with automation.

Information Technology has been a front runner

in this automation concept. Organizations are

quickly adopting leaner data centers,

virtualization and cloud computing. The concept

here is to get the best of productivity and reduce

the use (and in turn the overall cost) of power

hungry equipments. The Indian small and medium

business sector is poised for a big leap forward

given the market opportunity in the country.

Asking them to adopt and follow the IT practices

of yesteryears (typically large servers and huge IT

infrastructure) is not only heavy on the purse for

them, but is a waste of equipment and power.

Cloud computing has shown the way for these

enterprises and today these organizations can run

their business with a minimal IT infrastructure,

resting the burden of maintenance and huge

power costs which are apportioned across

multiple users.

Though the debate on whether cloud computing

is green or to what extent is still ongoing, one

thing agreed in general is the need for reducing

the number of people using individual hardware

Green technology -

a tool to power india’s

sustainable growthV.K.Kripanand,

Founder, See Beyond

Technologies

As long as a tradeoff does not cause a bigger and more adverse environmental impact, we should embrace it

Nano technology looks to be a very promising future for the areas of information technology, energy and environment

India, boasting about the world's second largest

population is not only poised to develop itself in

the next decade, but is also challenged on a

continuous basis to sustain its growth. Developed

nations have a distinct edge over India as they

have crossed several major hurdles of

accommodating sustainability and green

initiatives during the development phase. The

main challenge for India is to transform itself from

a developing nation to a developed nation taking

sustainability and Green technologies in

its stride.

Green technology has become an important

catalyst to help sustain growth. In every walk of

life, countries and corporations are trying to build

their growth story around the Green concepts.

Construction, transport, water, electricity and

food produce have always relied on natural

resources and today the challenge that developing

countries have is to help sustain these natural

resources for consumption today and for the

future.

Per India Vision 2020 report of the Planning

Commission, India is projected to require 1221 TW

of power and 781 billion cubic meters of water

for an estimated population of over 1.3 billion in

the year 2020.

So how is India gearing to this challenge in its

everyday life while maintaining the momentum on

the transformation? Let's start with addressing

the area of power requirement, which is one of

the key focus areas that this scribe works on.

The current demand of power and corresponding

supply is already imbalanced and there is an acute

shortage in every sector, be it agricultural,

commercial, industrial or residential demands.

The prediction for 2020 is quite alarming where

the total capacity demand- according to the

Planning commission report- has suggested that

over 2/3rd of the demand would have to be from

thermal sources. Alternative sources of energy

will still be gasping to catch up with the demand

unless a few radical steps are initiated. This has a

direct implication on the requirement of fuel and

j bar i 's Fl c Pho s re ms r e i kr to t a

The rural solar off-grid market in India is still mainly driven by government and NGO efforts. Nonetheless, there is an increasing interest from corporates and investors – both domestic and international – in exploring viable business opportunities to service India's vast rural, un-electrified population. Companies such as Selco Solar Light and Orb Energy are moving forward with commercial and scalable solutions. They are setting up structures that may allow them a profitable business in the future.

In India, close to 70-75 million households in rural areas (approximately 400m people or 80,000-90,000 villages) lack access to grid-connected electricity. Electrified households in the rural areas pay INR106 (€1.76) a month on an average for electricity. This is less than the INR150 (€2.50) which un-electrified households spend for light from a kerosene lantern. Assuming such households are able and willing to pay the same as electrified households, the market potential is in the range of INR90-95 billion (€1.50-1.58 billion) per year. Around 250,000 grid-connected villages with frequent power outages further increase this potential.

There are three key options for providing rural, off-grid, solar PV-based electricity solutions: small applications with integrated power generation capacity (e.g. solar lanterns and solar street lights), solar home systems (SHS) and mini-grids.

Costs of Off-grid PV Solutions

The MNRE estimates the benchmark costs for off-grid solar systems to be INR300 (€5) per W for p

systems with storage and INR210 (€3.5) per W p

without storage in the period of 2010-11. On-ground costs are usually higher - driven by high individual system design requirements and expensive transportation to and installation in remote areas. With low system prices, long lasting solar PV installations cannot be guaranteed.

The cost per unit from off-grid systems is INR13-14 (€0.21-0.23) per kWh. This is more than twice as much as the price for conventional grid power.

off-grid solar pv - a

potential Solution for rural

electrification in india

high

30 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 31SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

slate for the projected power generation capacity can become a lot cleaner and greener by bringing down the demand on fossil fuels by another 15%. The road ahead is surely bumpy but can be maneuvered with a good thinking on strategy, policies and incentives, which the policy makers will be required to bring in. An overall reduction of 30% of the demand coupled with the innovation ahead can make the ride a lot smoother.

V.K.Kripanand is one of the founders of See

Beyond Technologies Pvt Ltd. and has over two

decades of experience in various aspects of the

IT industry related to software development,

software engineering and systems engineering.

His company is a product development outfit,

with a mission to build products and solutions

in the areas of Green IT, software estimation,

project management, and knowledge

management. In the recent 4 years, Kripanand

has been passionate about environment and

carbon footprint reduction and has

spearheaded many initiatives and product

innovations in areas of energy conservation.

By Mohit Anand,

Senior Consultant,

Bridge to India

Bureaucratic hurdles and issues of eligibility for the subsidy mean that a large share of allocated funds is not being drawn upon

Electricity from diesel generator-sets is available between INR10-15 (€0.16-0.25) per kWh which is still slightly less than the remotely installed solar power. The price for diesel power depends predominantly on the accessibility to the village and the diesel subsidy given by the government (and indirectly on the global oil price). There will likely be an upward pressure on diesel and kerosene prices as oil prices rise and the government contemplates reducing the diesel subsidy.

The high initial capital costs for solar systems create a strong liquidity barrier in rural markets, with household incomes of around INR1,500-5,000 (€25-83.33) per month or less (at the “bottom of the pyramid”) and often few savings. The liquidity barrier can be overcome with various instruments like capital subsidies and micro-loans. Since June 2010, the Government of India has been supporting different solar off-grid systems with a Refinance Scheme under the NSM, where

Benchmark costs for solar off-grid systems

` 300 (€ 5) per Wp(or more) with storage

` 210 (€ 3.5) per Wp(or more) without storage

` 4-5 (€ 0.06-0.08) per kWh for grid power

` 10-15 (€ 0.16-0.25) per kWh for diesel off-set

` 13-14 (€ 0.21-0.23) per kWh for solar off-grid

Electricity Costs

The adoption

of technology for

reduction in power

consumption and

clean development

mechanisms can

bring down the

demand for power

by approximately

15%

P E R S P E C T I V E

30% of the initial capital cost is borne by the government. In the financial year 2010-11, more than 40MW of projects have been sanctioned under this scheme, which includes off-grid power plants, solar home systems, solar lanterns, street lights and mini-grids. The subsidy schemes have limited success as projects are often not followed up by a sustainable implementation and monitoring process. Bureaucratic hurdles and issues of eligibility for the subsidy mean that a large share of allocated funds is not being drawn upon.

Rural PV Applications

There are three main options for providing rural, off-grid, solar PV-based electricity solutions: small applications with integrated power generation capacity (e.g. solar lanterns and solar street lights), solar home systems (SHSs) and mini-grids. According to the MNRE, more than one million solar lanterns have been distributed in India. These systems consist of a small PV module, a battery and a light (LED or CFL). Some of the key companies in the field are Omega Electronics, Solarsis and Ritikaya Systems. In addition, 625,000 SHSs were installed by 2010, of which SELCO has set-up around 120,000 systems (one-fifth of the total installed). Other important companies in this field are Orb Energy, Omega Electronics and Orange Alternative.

Financing Rural PV Applications

For a typical SHS of 30Wp with storage, the total system cost is close to INR 9,000 (€150). Under the Refinance Scheme, the government pays INR 2,700 (€45) and INR 4,500 (€75) is covered by a low interest loan. The household has to pay the remaining INR 1,800 (€30). For this, different microfinance options are available. A frequently used financing scheme is the SHG Linkage Program with 20 million customers. In this program, poor people who live in rural areas without any access to modern financial services are clustered in self-help groups (SHG). These groups can open a savings account and get access to credit loans. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural

Development (NABARD) are the major providers of the SHG Linkage Program.

Companies interested in selling solar home systems under a government support scheme first have to get a permit from the government in order to be eligible for the subsidy. Then they have to partner with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) or a microfinance institution (MFI). Usually, Village Electrification Committees are set up to involve the customers or beneficiaries in the projects. The local partner - NGO or MFI - has to get an approval from the district authorities for the execution of the project. The capital subsidy is released from IREDA to the primary lending institution like NABARD on receipt of the application. After the successful implementation of the solar system, the capital subsidy is passed on to the EPC company. The local partner has to ensure that the repayment and the interest are collected in the village.

Other than the lack of funds faced by potential electricity consumers, there are a number of other operational challenges to providing solar-based power solutions to off-grid consumers in India. For one, due to political dynamics and election promises, electricity is widely considered to be a free government service. This can reduce the willingness of consumers to pay for power or solar power systems. Another reason is that the end

consumers may not have many electrical appliances and hence may not consume much electricity. This is a chicken-and-egg problem that will likely solve itself over time. Such a situation makes it difficult to determine the right size of a system. Moreover, the electricity needs to be used in such a way that the consumer can apply it to a business model that allows him or her to pay for the electricity and perhaps

make a profit above that. Examples are electric water pumps that increase the yield of the fields or a village cinema that attracts paying viewers. A third challenge is the frequent theft or destruction of PV panels in remote areas. Lastly, many projects fail because they lack maintenance and monitoring structures to upkeep the systems throughout their lifetime. Presence of dust and low quality of the components add to a bad performance by the installed systems.

32 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 33SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Business Models for PV-based Solar Home Systems (SHSs)

There are a number of companies in India that have started to successfully tackle the

challenges. Selco Solar Lights, for example, has

set up 25 energy service centers in

the states of Maharashtra and

Gujarat where they sell solar home systems and offer financing as well as maintenance services. Selco sells their systems through financing agreements with regional rural banks, MFIs and credit cooperatives. The loan covers 85% of the capital cost, repayable over five years at an interest rate of 12-17%.

Another example is Orb Energy that has close to 90 branches in

four South Indian states which sell off-grid systems and offer services. With an investment from the Acumen Fund, they intend to double this number in the next two years by increasing their manufacturing capacity and the number of branches. A key learning for them has been that products for rural electrification have to be taken to the customer as low-income villagers rarely travel. In addition, local entrepreneurs are required as sales partners as they have a better understanding of the local energy needs. A widespread distribution network is crucial in order to reach out to customers and guarantee maintenance.

Indian companies involved in the rural electrification market expect orders to double in the next three years. As more solar systems will be installed, system design will improve, banks will become more confident with lending money for solar power projects and government policies may become more targeted and effective. At the same time, falling costs for PV modules and systems and rising costs of kerosene and diesel will make the solar market more competitive.

References:

1. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 25

2. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 20

3. Ministry Guidelines by MNRE, June 2010,

http://www.mnre.gov.in

4. Industry interviews, BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

5. BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

6. For this reason, many villages prefer to wait for grid

connection, even if there is little hope for reliable grid

power in the near term. This also raises the question of

what will happen to more expensive solar power, if the

village becomes grid connected.

7. MNRE, http://www.mnre.gov.in/, June 2011

8. Dr. A. Raza (MNRE), Off-grid Lighting in India,

Presentation at DIREC 2010

9. The Hindu Business Line, “Selco Solar Light plans to

illuminate 2 lakh homes”, 21-03-2011, URL:

http://www.selco-

india.com/pdfs/sowra_jyothi_business_line.pdf

10. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 36

11. Acumen Fund, URL:

http://www.acumenfund.org/investment/orb-

energy.html, June 2011

12. Industry interviews, BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

13. Industry interviews

Self Financing

20%

Loan at 5% p.a.

50%Subsidy by the Central

Government

30%

Financing of a typical 30 W SHS including battery storage

Mohit Anand works as a Senior Consultant with

BRIDGE TO INDIA, a consulting company with an

entrepreneurial approach based in New Delhi.

Founded in 2008, the company provides market

analysis and market entry advisory to

international solar companies looking to enter

the Indian market. www.bridgetoindia.com

The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high-performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field

Living Off Grid's Flickr Photostream

30% of the initial capital cost is borne by the government. In the financial year 2010-11, more than 40MW of projects have been sanctioned under this scheme, which includes off-grid power plants, solar home systems, solar lanterns, street lights and mini-grids. The subsidy schemes have limited success as projects are often not followed up by a sustainable implementation and monitoring process. Bureaucratic hurdles and issues of eligibility for the subsidy mean that a large share of allocated funds is not being drawn upon.

Rural PV Applications

There are three main options for providing rural, off-grid, solar PV-based electricity solutions: small applications with integrated power generation capacity (e.g. solar lanterns and solar street lights), solar home systems (SHSs) and mini-grids. According to the MNRE, more than one million solar lanterns have been distributed in India. These systems consist of a small PV module, a battery and a light (LED or CFL). Some of the key companies in the field are Omega Electronics, Solarsis and Ritikaya Systems. In addition, 625,000 SHSs were installed by 2010, of which SELCO has set-up around 120,000 systems (one-fifth of the total installed). Other important companies in this field are Orb Energy, Omega Electronics and Orange Alternative.

Financing Rural PV Applications

For a typical SHS of 30Wp with storage, the total system cost is close to INR 9,000 (€150). Under the Refinance Scheme, the government pays INR 2,700 (€45) and INR 4,500 (€75) is covered by a low interest loan. The household has to pay the remaining INR 1,800 (€30). For this, different microfinance options are available. A frequently used financing scheme is the SHG Linkage Program with 20 million customers. In this program, poor people who live in rural areas without any access to modern financial services are clustered in self-help groups (SHG). These groups can open a savings account and get access to credit loans. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural

Development (NABARD) are the major providers of the SHG Linkage Program.

Companies interested in selling solar home systems under a government support scheme first have to get a permit from the government in order to be eligible for the subsidy. Then they have to partner with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) or a microfinance institution (MFI). Usually, Village Electrification Committees are set up to involve the customers or beneficiaries in the projects. The local partner - NGO or MFI - has to get an approval from the district authorities for the execution of the project. The capital subsidy is released from IREDA to the primary lending institution like NABARD on receipt of the application. After the successful implementation of the solar system, the capital subsidy is passed on to the EPC company. The local partner has to ensure that the repayment and the interest are collected in the village.

Other than the lack of funds faced by potential electricity consumers, there are a number of other operational challenges to providing solar-based power solutions to off-grid consumers in India. For one, due to political dynamics and election promises, electricity is widely considered to be a free government service. This can reduce the willingness of consumers to pay for power or solar power systems. Another reason is that the end

consumers may not have many electrical appliances and hence may not consume much electricity. This is a chicken-and-egg problem that will likely solve itself over time. Such a situation makes it difficult to determine the right size of a system. Moreover, the electricity needs to be used in such a way that the consumer can apply it to a business model that allows him or her to pay for the electricity and perhaps

make a profit above that. Examples are electric water pumps that increase the yield of the fields or a village cinema that attracts paying viewers. A third challenge is the frequent theft or destruction of PV panels in remote areas. Lastly, many projects fail because they lack maintenance and monitoring structures to upkeep the systems throughout their lifetime. Presence of dust and low quality of the components add to a bad performance by the installed systems.

32 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 33SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Business Models for PV-based Solar Home Systems (SHSs)

There are a number of companies in India that have started to successfully tackle the

challenges. Selco Solar Lights, for example, has

set up 25 energy service centers in

the states of Maharashtra and

Gujarat where they sell solar home systems and offer financing as well as maintenance services. Selco sells their systems through financing agreements with regional rural banks, MFIs and credit cooperatives. The loan covers 85% of the capital cost, repayable over five years at an interest rate of 12-17%.

Another example is Orb Energy that has close to 90 branches in

four South Indian states which sell off-grid systems and offer services. With an investment from the Acumen Fund, they intend to double this number in the next two years by increasing their manufacturing capacity and the number of branches. A key learning for them has been that products for rural electrification have to be taken to the customer as low-income villagers rarely travel. In addition, local entrepreneurs are required as sales partners as they have a better understanding of the local energy needs. A widespread distribution network is crucial in order to reach out to customers and guarantee maintenance.

Indian companies involved in the rural electrification market expect orders to double in the next three years. As more solar systems will be installed, system design will improve, banks will become more confident with lending money for solar power projects and government policies may become more targeted and effective. At the same time, falling costs for PV modules and systems and rising costs of kerosene and diesel will make the solar market more competitive.

References:

1. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 25

2. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 20

3. Ministry Guidelines by MNRE, June 2010,

http://www.mnre.gov.in

4. Industry interviews, BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

5. BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

6. For this reason, many villages prefer to wait for grid

connection, even if there is little hope for reliable grid

power in the near term. This also raises the question of

what will happen to more expensive solar power, if the

village becomes grid connected.

7. MNRE, http://www.mnre.gov.in/, June 2011

8. Dr. A. Raza (MNRE), Off-grid Lighting in India,

Presentation at DIREC 2010

9. The Hindu Business Line, “Selco Solar Light plans to

illuminate 2 lakh homes”, 21-03-2011, URL:

http://www.selco-

india.com/pdfs/sowra_jyothi_business_line.pdf

10. World Resource Institute, Centre of Development

Finance, New Ventures; Power to the People - Report;

2010, p. 36

11. Acumen Fund, URL:

http://www.acumenfund.org/investment/orb-

energy.html, June 2011

12. Industry interviews, BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis

13. Industry interviews

Self Financing

20%

Loan at 5% p.a.

50%Subsidy by the Central

Government

30%

Financing of a typical 30 W SHS including battery storage

Mohit Anand works as a Senior Consultant with

BRIDGE TO INDIA, a consulting company with an

entrepreneurial approach based in New Delhi.

Founded in 2008, the company provides market

analysis and market entry advisory to

international solar companies looking to enter

the Indian market. www.bridgetoindia.com

The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high-performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field

Living Off Grid's Flickr Photostream

34 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 35SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

diagram 1). These troughs are attached together to form a “collector” that can be 100 to 150m long. For solar power plants the total length may

even extend to several kilometers. The troughs track the sun over the course of the day and focus the resulting radiation along the lines of the mirrors onto absorber tube receivers Comprising 80-90% of the technology used in CSP plants, parabolic troughs are by far the most commonly employed solar power technology. Many parallel rows of solar collectors span the plant's solar field, tracking the sun as it moves. To collect sunlight, CSP plants may also use larger power towers in the middle of the solar field, surrounded by an

array of flat, movable mirrors, known as heliostats (see diagram 2), which reflect sunlight to it. Applied at the pivot points (see diagram 3) on the major tracking systems used to collect sunlight, specifically parabolic troughs and power towers, bearings enable the troughs to move easily and with little or no friction.

Small solutions make a big difference

While bearings are small components, they can make a big difference to the bottom line. Since not all bearings are created equal, CSP plant owners can look for certain features to optimise efficiency.

It is important to source bearings that are chemical and water resistant as well as weather proof. This will lead to less corrosion from external elements and longer lasting application, reducing replacement and maintenance costs. To be truly effective, the bearings also need to withstand extreme temperatures ranging from zero to 70 degrees celsius.

Bearings that contain proprietary poly tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE) compounds have the lowest coefficient of friction of all solid materials,

The facts speak for themselves - solar energy is a huge and important trend. Solar energy is infinite and free, with the total amount of energy irradiated from the sun to the earth's surface each year providing enough for annual global consumption 10,000 times over. The benefits of solar power are both compelling and obvious, from reducing carbon emissions to providing a sustainable energy source.

Solar energy is a completely renewable resource as we can always rely on the sun showing up tomorrow as a consistent power source. Alternatively, the majority of energy sources that are currently used to power buildings, such as oil, gas and electricity, are predominantly non-renewable resources. Once depleted, they are gone forever. If we are solely reliant on these sources, we will no longer have power or energy. It is therefore vital that the solar power trend continues to grow.

Recognizing the importance of the solar power trend, the European Union has committed to making 20% of energy renewable by 2020. It is essential that technologies employed by Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are of the highest standard to reach this goal. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in 1994, is made up of 192 countries committed to affecting climate change. The UNFCCC treaty was born to exchange information and offer support related to climate change, and to develop strategies aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 1997, an addition to the treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted by 184 countries. The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005, sets targets for various countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% against 1990 levels from 2008-2012. And these regulations are

another driving force behind the growth in demand for solar energy.

So what makes the huge solar power trend work?

Small parts, of course! It is predicted that in a few years, the CSP market will grow from two to four gigawatts per year. To meet the on-going demand for energy, it is crucial to continually enhance the longevity of the CSP plant. The small parts that make up these large plants help to keep the applications maintenance free, long lasting, and moving efficiently, extending overall facility life and productivity.

The key for any CSP plant is bearings, devices designed to reduce friction between two parts in motion, which saves energy by facilitating movement. There are many bearing options and this choice can have a major impact on plant productivity. The wrong technology could see CSP plants need continuous maintenance over the years, adding additional costs and uncertainty over the longevity of the plants. The right technology can enable rapid scale up to keep up with the booming solar industry, ensure minimum maintenance and keep the amount of energy to power the technology low, keeping plants running efficiently over the coming years.

Small part of the puzzle

It is fair to say that small parts play a huge difference in a technology's success, a fact that is evident when considering the role bearings play in CSP plants. Solar power is produced by collecting sunlight and converting it into heat and finally electricity. This is done by using tracking structures, equipped with flat or curved mirrors to concentrate the sun light in a focus point or line.

In order to achieve the high temperatures required, solar radiation must be concentrated. Parabolic trough collectors represent the most advanced technology for use in doing this (see

a sunny future: how Small bearings can make a

huge difference in concentrated solar plants

P E R S P E C T I V E

Janaki Weiden

Global Market Manager -

Solar, Bearings & Tolerance

Rings Business Units,

Saint Gobain Solar

meaning smoother movements and extremely high wear resistance for CSP technologies. Low coefficient of friction of solid materials will result in less steel-on-steel action and less friction and, therefore, less wear and a longer life. This reduced friction and avoidance of stick-slip effects in the tracking systems allows mirrors to move more easily towards the sun with less energy usage. PTFE, with its extreme weather resistance and high corrosion resistance, can increase the long-term operational efficiency of solar equipment, reduce energy usage and decrease long-term costs. Manufacturers must also consider different backing layers on the bearings they choose. Ideal options include normal steel protected with a proprietary corrosion protection system and aluminum or stainless steel backings - all of which do not rust and therefore, never need replacing.

To comply with environmental regulations, bearings that feature lightweight materials are ideal, as well as those that are also free of heavy metals and banned chemicals such as Chrome VI and Per Fluoro Octanoic Acid. Additionally, it is worthy to note that bearings that can operate without grease can help plant operators avoid cleaning costs needed to remove drippings from the structures, which impedes effectiveness.

Choosing the right small part supplier

The importance of small parts cannot be undervalued and CSP plant owners and engineers must choose their suppliers with care to ensure long-term support and scalability as demand rises. The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high-performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field.

Other factors to evaluate include testing and research and development (R&D) capabilities. Selecting bearings with a proven track record is ideal to guarantee performance, so partner with companies that can provide thorough testing data supporting resistance to temperature, water and friction as well as the influence of various shaft surfaces and coatings.

So do small parts really make a difference?

The answer, in short, is absolutely. Bearings can offer clear-cut solutions for CSP plants, by being able to offer different PTFE blends to fit the needs of the plant. The bearings help to reduce maintenance costs while increasing overall efficiency of the technologies on CSP plants—not such a small part after all!

Power Tower

Diagram 2

Parabolic Trough

Diagram 1

Heliostat

Diagram 3

The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field

Janaki Weiden is the Global Market Manager Solar & Industry at Saint Gobain Solar. He is an expert in sales and marketing and also all areas of bearing design such as the selection of materials and sizing.

The key for any

CSP plant is

bearings, devices

designed to

reduce friction

between two parts

in motion, which

saves energy by

facilitating

movement

34 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 35SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

diagram 1). These troughs are attached together to form a “collector” that can be 100 to 150m long. For solar power plants the total length may

even extend to several kilometers. The troughs track the sun over the course of the day and focus the resulting radiation along the lines of the mirrors onto absorber tube receivers Comprising 80-90% of the technology used in CSP plants, parabolic troughs are by far the most commonly employed solar power technology. Many parallel rows of solar collectors span the plant's solar field, tracking the sun as it moves. To collect sunlight, CSP plants may also use larger power towers in the middle of the solar field, surrounded by an

array of flat, movable mirrors, known as heliostats (see diagram 2), which reflect sunlight to it. Applied at the pivot points (see diagram 3) on the major tracking systems used to collect sunlight, specifically parabolic troughs and power towers, bearings enable the troughs to move easily and with little or no friction.

Small solutions make a big difference

While bearings are small components, they can make a big difference to the bottom line. Since not all bearings are created equal, CSP plant owners can look for certain features to optimise efficiency.

It is important to source bearings that are chemical and water resistant as well as weather proof. This will lead to less corrosion from external elements and longer lasting application, reducing replacement and maintenance costs. To be truly effective, the bearings also need to withstand extreme temperatures ranging from zero to 70 degrees celsius.

Bearings that contain proprietary poly tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE) compounds have the lowest coefficient of friction of all solid materials,

The facts speak for themselves - solar energy is a huge and important trend. Solar energy is infinite and free, with the total amount of energy irradiated from the sun to the earth's surface each year providing enough for annual global consumption 10,000 times over. The benefits of solar power are both compelling and obvious, from reducing carbon emissions to providing a sustainable energy source.

Solar energy is a completely renewable resource as we can always rely on the sun showing up tomorrow as a consistent power source. Alternatively, the majority of energy sources that are currently used to power buildings, such as oil, gas and electricity, are predominantly non-renewable resources. Once depleted, they are gone forever. If we are solely reliant on these sources, we will no longer have power or energy. It is therefore vital that the solar power trend continues to grow.

Recognizing the importance of the solar power trend, the European Union has committed to making 20% of energy renewable by 2020. It is essential that technologies employed by Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are of the highest standard to reach this goal. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in 1994, is made up of 192 countries committed to affecting climate change. The UNFCCC treaty was born to exchange information and offer support related to climate change, and to develop strategies aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 1997, an addition to the treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted by 184 countries. The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005, sets targets for various countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% against 1990 levels from 2008-2012. And these regulations are

another driving force behind the growth in demand for solar energy.

So what makes the huge solar power trend work?

Small parts, of course! It is predicted that in a few years, the CSP market will grow from two to four gigawatts per year. To meet the on-going demand for energy, it is crucial to continually enhance the longevity of the CSP plant. The small parts that make up these large plants help to keep the applications maintenance free, long lasting, and moving efficiently, extending overall facility life and productivity.

The key for any CSP plant is bearings, devices designed to reduce friction between two parts in motion, which saves energy by facilitating movement. There are many bearing options and this choice can have a major impact on plant productivity. The wrong technology could see CSP plants need continuous maintenance over the years, adding additional costs and uncertainty over the longevity of the plants. The right technology can enable rapid scale up to keep up with the booming solar industry, ensure minimum maintenance and keep the amount of energy to power the technology low, keeping plants running efficiently over the coming years.

Small part of the puzzle

It is fair to say that small parts play a huge difference in a technology's success, a fact that is evident when considering the role bearings play in CSP plants. Solar power is produced by collecting sunlight and converting it into heat and finally electricity. This is done by using tracking structures, equipped with flat or curved mirrors to concentrate the sun light in a focus point or line.

In order to achieve the high temperatures required, solar radiation must be concentrated. Parabolic trough collectors represent the most advanced technology for use in doing this (see

a sunny future: how Small bearings can make a

huge difference in concentrated solar plants

P E R S P E C T I V E

Janaki Weiden

Global Market Manager -

Solar, Bearings & Tolerance

Rings Business Units,

Saint Gobain Solar

meaning smoother movements and extremely high wear resistance for CSP technologies. Low coefficient of friction of solid materials will result in less steel-on-steel action and less friction and, therefore, less wear and a longer life. This reduced friction and avoidance of stick-slip effects in the tracking systems allows mirrors to move more easily towards the sun with less energy usage. PTFE, with its extreme weather resistance and high corrosion resistance, can increase the long-term operational efficiency of solar equipment, reduce energy usage and decrease long-term costs. Manufacturers must also consider different backing layers on the bearings they choose. Ideal options include normal steel protected with a proprietary corrosion protection system and aluminum or stainless steel backings - all of which do not rust and therefore, never need replacing.

To comply with environmental regulations, bearings that feature lightweight materials are ideal, as well as those that are also free of heavy metals and banned chemicals such as Chrome VI and Per Fluoro Octanoic Acid. Additionally, it is worthy to note that bearings that can operate without grease can help plant operators avoid cleaning costs needed to remove drippings from the structures, which impedes effectiveness.

Choosing the right small part supplier

The importance of small parts cannot be undervalued and CSP plant owners and engineers must choose their suppliers with care to ensure long-term support and scalability as demand rises. The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high-performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field.

Other factors to evaluate include testing and research and development (R&D) capabilities. Selecting bearings with a proven track record is ideal to guarantee performance, so partner with companies that can provide thorough testing data supporting resistance to temperature, water and friction as well as the influence of various shaft surfaces and coatings.

So do small parts really make a difference?

The answer, in short, is absolutely. Bearings can offer clear-cut solutions for CSP plants, by being able to offer different PTFE blends to fit the needs of the plant. The bearings help to reduce maintenance costs while increasing overall efficiency of the technologies on CSP plants—not such a small part after all!

Power Tower

Diagram 2

Parabolic Trough

Diagram 1

Heliostat

Diagram 3

The key is to partner with experienced global companies with high performance solutions and innovation teams that keep up with this rapidly advancing field

Janaki Weiden is the Global Market Manager Solar & Industry at Saint Gobain Solar. He is an expert in sales and marketing and also all areas of bearing design such as the selection of materials and sizing.

The key for any

CSP plant is

bearings, devices

designed to

reduce friction

between two parts

in motion, which

saves energy by

facilitating

movement

36 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 37SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Climate change imperatives require developing countries to pursue a completely untried low-carbon path to achieve their development goals. For them to succeed technology has to play a significant role and as many of the technologies are owned by the developed world, these have to be transferred, quickly at an affordable price. This will inevitably lead to a whole set of challenges as public and private interests conflict.

India faces significant social and economic development challenges, and providing access to energy and long-term energy security is of paramount importance to enable it to attain its development goals. At the same time, India also needs to provide opportunities to a diverse set of entrepreneurs to develop and propagate solutions which are low carbon in nature to meet these goals. Therefore, access to technology and knowledge that is currently in the domain of the developed countries becomes extremely critical.

Technology transfer typically refers to a continuum of activities. At one end is the import, usually of equipment, by developing countries while the other end is when local firms and institutions innovate through their own R&D. Most consider the process as complete only when the latter happens, but practice shows this is rare and takes a very long time. The challenge therefore is to not only reach the last stage but to do so quickly.

Understanding the challenges

In order to understand the barriers and challenges to such effective and complete technology transfers, SustainAbility undertook extensive secondary research as well as met with experts ranging from power companies, power equipment manufacturers, regulators and researchers. The headline conclusions were as follows:

– Technologies are available and there is a willingness to transfer. Historically, India has always had access to technologies and all forms of transfer have happened. Hence, there is unlikely to be a physical barrier to transfer of climate change technologies, especially since India's huge and increasingly open market makes it attractive to investors and technology suppliers.

challenges of clean technology development

in india’s power sector

P E R S P E C T I V E

Shankar Venkateswaran

Director, SustainAbility

– Conditions for transfer are a matter of market conditions and negotiating skills. The route taken by technology transfer – licensing on the one hand and setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary on the other – and the conditions of transfer depend upon global and local market conditions. An important market condition is the competitive landscape though the market for technology in the power sector has always remained competitive.

– Fair and equitable policies that facilitate trade in power equipment are important. Low trade barriers, especially for low-carbon power generation technologies, and balanced and fair IPR protection are critical to grow demand and hence stimulate innovation. Apart from addressing some policy anomalies, there is a need to ensure that responses to financial and climate crises do not result in protectionism, especially by the developed world.

– Low and zero-carbon technologies require strong policy signals and support to deliver value. Expectedly, there are a whole slew of low carbon power technologies that are at various stages of development and deployment but costs of deployment and use are high. If they are to realise their potential of “carbon/cost win-win”, then scale, innovation and risk mitigation are critical. Public policies, within India and globally have a crucial role to play.

– Availability and cost of finance is crucial for development, commercialisation and deployment of new technologies. Adequate and patient funds at a cost that keeps the final cost of new technology at a reasonable level are crucial at all stages: development, commercialisation and deployment of clean technology. Many experts share the belief that the current global financial crisis has hit the renewables sector the hardest.

– Availability and cost of finance is crucial for transferring developed low carbon technologies from anywhere in the world. Given the high initial cost of low carbon technologies and the long pay-back periods involved, availability and cost of finance is critical to procure the best available technologies.

Alternative sources of funds are essential to make it more attractive to commercial interests.

– IPR does increase costs of technology but the impact is hard to assess. Few doubted that IPR increases the costs of technology but it was very difficult to assess the actual impact. Crucially, none of the companies surveyed reported that the IPR prices were so high as to undermine their economic viability and one reason was the availability of alternatives i.e. competition.

The way forward

The study clearly showed that competition amongst suppliers is the most effective way of ensuring access to technology at reasonable prices. To achieve this requires a combination of policy interventions, market forces and availability of finance and these are outlined below:

- Increase domestic demand for clean technologies through policy interventions. High demand for appropriate technologies leads to a virtuous cycle of reducing costs, stimulating innovation and keeping global technology suppliers ready and willing to transfer technology. For this to happen, public policy is crucial to overcome the initial financial hump. The building blocks of such policy signals are the setting of long-term and ambitious targets and strategies; feed-in tariffs that incentivise capacity expansion and performance; binding obligations

on the proportion of low-carbon technologies in the power mix and favouring energy efficient and low emission technology.

- Increase access to global markets.

Establishing an equitable trading system that ensures access to clean technologies, especially renewables, will also contribute to this virtuous cycle. International negotiations must address attempts at protectionism, especially by the developed world, in line with global covenants.

- Increase supply of clean technologies

Experience has shown that increased competition or availability of clean technology is crucial to

enable its free transfer at reasonable prices and minimising the impact of IPR premiums. While demand provides an important signal to innovate and increase supply, it is not sufficient. Fiscal incentives like capital subsidies and tax breaks encourage innovation in development, manufacturing and deployment. Availability of public funds for technology development and commercialisation (along with setting up of long-term goals and strategies by governments) is important in itself and because it helps leverage private investment in this high-risk space. The setting up of publicly-supported global, regional and national innovation centres that bring together the best minds from across the world – designers, developers, manufacturers and investors – will also play a key role.

- Facilitating technology cooperation

While the supply of clean technologies catches up with demand, it would be important to create an enabling framework for technology cooperation, ensuring that technology is shared and deployed from the developed world (which currently owns most of the advanced technologies) to developing countries like India at prices that enable these countries to meet their development goals. A global fund, equitably managed and governed, has been mooted and this fund would be crucial both to cover high licensing costs of technologies as well as setting up of the global innovation centres. Using flexibilities under TRIPS – such as compulsory licensing, exceptions to patent rights etc. – is also possible, but this study indicated that the trajectory of technology development and demand may make this unnecessary.

Note: This article is extracted from a study undertaken by SustainAbility and funded by ActionAid India and WWF India.

There are subsidies – overt and hidden – associated with conventional power sector that keep their costs artificially low

Shankar Venkateswaran is the Director- Social

Policy with SustainAbility. His responsibilities

currently include developing the India office as

well as bringing emerging economies and social

concerns to SustainAbility's work globally. Before

joining SustainAbility, Shankar has spent over 25

years in the corporate and development sectors in

India with organizations like American India

Foundation, ActionAid, Partners in Change, A F

Ferguson & Co. (now a part of Deloitte) and Brook

Bond (now Hindustan Unilever). He helped

establish Partners in Change and the India Office

of America India Foundation, a funding agency

supported by Indian Americans.

India faces significant social and economic development challenges, and providing access to energy and long-term energy security is of paramount importance

Tobyotter's Flickr Photostream

36 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 37SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Climate change imperatives require developing countries to pursue a completely untried low-carbon path to achieve their development goals. For them to succeed technology has to play a significant role and as many of the technologies are owned by the developed world, these have to be transferred, quickly at an affordable price. This will inevitably lead to a whole set of challenges as public and private interests conflict.

India faces significant social and economic development challenges, and providing access to energy and long-term energy security is of paramount importance to enable it to attain its development goals. At the same time, India also needs to provide opportunities to a diverse set of entrepreneurs to develop and propagate solutions which are low carbon in nature to meet these goals. Therefore, access to technology and knowledge that is currently in the domain of the developed countries becomes extremely critical.

Technology transfer typically refers to a continuum of activities. At one end is the import, usually of equipment, by developing countries while the other end is when local firms and institutions innovate through their own R&D. Most consider the process as complete only when the latter happens, but practice shows this is rare and takes a very long time. The challenge therefore is to not only reach the last stage but to do so quickly.

Understanding the challenges

In order to understand the barriers and challenges to such effective and complete technology transfers, SustainAbility undertook extensive secondary research as well as met with experts ranging from power companies, power equipment manufacturers, regulators and researchers. The headline conclusions were as follows:

– Technologies are available and there is a willingness to transfer. Historically, India has always had access to technologies and all forms of transfer have happened. Hence, there is unlikely to be a physical barrier to transfer of climate change technologies, especially since India's huge and increasingly open market makes it attractive to investors and technology suppliers.

challenges of clean technology development

in india’s power sector

P E R S P E C T I V E

Shankar Venkateswaran

Director, SustainAbility

– Conditions for transfer are a matter of market conditions and negotiating skills. The route taken by technology transfer – licensing on the one hand and setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary on the other – and the conditions of transfer depend upon global and local market conditions. An important market condition is the competitive landscape though the market for technology in the power sector has always remained competitive.

– Fair and equitable policies that facilitate trade in power equipment are important. Low trade barriers, especially for low-carbon power generation technologies, and balanced and fair IPR protection are critical to grow demand and hence stimulate innovation. Apart from addressing some policy anomalies, there is a need to ensure that responses to financial and climate crises do not result in protectionism, especially by the developed world.

– Low and zero-carbon technologies require strong policy signals and support to deliver value. Expectedly, there are a whole slew of low carbon power technologies that are at various stages of development and deployment but costs of deployment and use are high. If they are to realise their potential of “carbon/cost win-win”, then scale, innovation and risk mitigation are critical. Public policies, within India and globally have a crucial role to play.

– Availability and cost of finance is crucial for development, commercialisation and deployment of new technologies. Adequate and patient funds at a cost that keeps the final cost of new technology at a reasonable level are crucial at all stages: development, commercialisation and deployment of clean technology. Many experts share the belief that the current global financial crisis has hit the renewables sector the hardest.

– Availability and cost of finance is crucial for transferring developed low carbon technologies from anywhere in the world. Given the high initial cost of low carbon technologies and the long pay-back periods involved, availability and cost of finance is critical to procure the best available technologies.

Alternative sources of funds are essential to make it more attractive to commercial interests.

– IPR does increase costs of technology but the impact is hard to assess. Few doubted that IPR increases the costs of technology but it was very difficult to assess the actual impact. Crucially, none of the companies surveyed reported that the IPR prices were so high as to undermine their economic viability and one reason was the availability of alternatives i.e. competition.

The way forward

The study clearly showed that competition amongst suppliers is the most effective way of ensuring access to technology at reasonable prices. To achieve this requires a combination of policy interventions, market forces and availability of finance and these are outlined below:

- Increase domestic demand for clean technologies through policy interventions. High demand for appropriate technologies leads to a virtuous cycle of reducing costs, stimulating innovation and keeping global technology suppliers ready and willing to transfer technology. For this to happen, public policy is crucial to overcome the initial financial hump. The building blocks of such policy signals are the setting of long-term and ambitious targets and strategies; feed-in tariffs that incentivise capacity expansion and performance; binding obligations

on the proportion of low-carbon technologies in the power mix and favouring energy efficient and low emission technology.

- Increase access to global markets.

Establishing an equitable trading system that ensures access to clean technologies, especially renewables, will also contribute to this virtuous cycle. International negotiations must address attempts at protectionism, especially by the developed world, in line with global covenants.

- Increase supply of clean technologies

Experience has shown that increased competition or availability of clean technology is crucial to

enable its free transfer at reasonable prices and minimising the impact of IPR premiums. While demand provides an important signal to innovate and increase supply, it is not sufficient. Fiscal incentives like capital subsidies and tax breaks encourage innovation in development, manufacturing and deployment. Availability of public funds for technology development and commercialisation (along with setting up of long-term goals and strategies by governments) is important in itself and because it helps leverage private investment in this high-risk space. The setting up of publicly-supported global, regional and national innovation centres that bring together the best minds from across the world – designers, developers, manufacturers and investors – will also play a key role.

- Facilitating technology cooperation

While the supply of clean technologies catches up with demand, it would be important to create an enabling framework for technology cooperation, ensuring that technology is shared and deployed from the developed world (which currently owns most of the advanced technologies) to developing countries like India at prices that enable these countries to meet their development goals. A global fund, equitably managed and governed, has been mooted and this fund would be crucial both to cover high licensing costs of technologies as well as setting up of the global innovation centres. Using flexibilities under TRIPS – such as compulsory licensing, exceptions to patent rights etc. – is also possible, but this study indicated that the trajectory of technology development and demand may make this unnecessary.

Note: This article is extracted from a study undertaken by SustainAbility and funded by ActionAid India and WWF India.

There are subsidies – overt and hidden – associated with conventional power sector that keep their costs artificially low

Shankar Venkateswaran is the Director- Social

Policy with SustainAbility. His responsibilities

currently include developing the India office as

well as bringing emerging economies and social

concerns to SustainAbility's work globally. Before

joining SustainAbility, Shankar has spent over 25

years in the corporate and development sectors in

India with organizations like American India

Foundation, ActionAid, Partners in Change, A F

Ferguson & Co. (now a part of Deloitte) and Brook

Bond (now Hindustan Unilever). He helped

establish Partners in Change and the India Office

of America India Foundation, a funding agency

supported by Indian Americans.

India faces significant social and economic development challenges, and providing access to energy and long-term energy security is of paramount importance

Tobyotter's Flickr Photostream

Transferable skills hold the key especially for senior managers

The above 3 basic steps would give you an insight into opportunities that exist as also enable you to identify the transferrable skills (a) as you seek to enter the domain and (b) as you engage in conversation with prospective employers. The transferable skills can be found in functional areas (like project management, analytical and research skills, etc. which many sustainability firms need) or in industry expertise (like consumer durables and understanding role of labels and consumer requirements in designing green products).

This issue is far more crucial for senior managers because they have to go further than the younger recruits to demonstrate how they can add value and justify their compensation.

After this, it is like any other career search:

Step 4: Make a list of your drivers and needs

Step 5: Identify the firms that align with your drivers and needs.

Just like with any career transition, be prepared to demonstrate that you are committed to learn. For the right opportunity, this might entail taking a pay-cut and/ or joining at a lower level.

And getting your foot-in-the-door and entering the industry is only the beginning. Thereafter the rules of the game are similar to that of other rapidly emerging industries: be a constant learner and make yourself invaluable.

3. SolveClimate News

4. Sustainable Brands

5. GreenBiz

* is the only India focused daily news service

If there is a topic in particular that you want to track, then in my experience, nothing beats Google Alerts.

Step 3: Start interacting with existing professionals

Today there is no shortage of venues to connect with existing sustainability professionals. You can eavesdrop by joining e-groups of the above listed organizations (on linkedin, google groups, etc.) and tracking member discussions, or you can also join specialized groups like Green India Google group, Soaring Opps, etc.

To get a feel of the space, there is nothing better than engaging in a 'live conversation' and meeting people at trade-fairs, conferences and other meets. The date books of many of the news sources mentioned above will keep you upto-date on such programs.

Steps 1 – 3 sound obvious (and they are) but only very few aspirants looking at this space really make the effort. Chances are that if you are reading this article, you are already making that effort.

38 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 39SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

“What do you know about India's National Action Plan on Climate Change?”

…”huh?”

“How do you feel corporates will be impacted by the Perform-Achieve-Trade scheme?”

…”huh?”

“Are you familiar with any emerging requirements / standards for business to become more sustainable?”

…”no idea”

Over 90% of my phone interviews play like the monologue above and end predictably: “no go”. The 'sustainability bandwagon' is attracting attention from hordes of professionals from diverse backgrounds; the vast majority of whom are unlikely to even get a chance to participate in this emerging industry.

This article is specifically for 'non-sustainability' professionals looking to enter this domain: senior managers to recent graduates.

Understanding that sustainability is inter-disciplinary

There is no single industry that makes up the sustainability domain, but rather it is an inter-disciplinary field that brings together functions that have existed for a long time. Sustainability brings together functions around environmental engineering, environmental and climate finance, production and design, energy production and efficiency, etc.

What has been happening in the last few years is the growing awareness of how these functions are inter-related to solve the challenge of minimizing resource utilization (and ideally going to zero): be it energy, water or other natural resources. The business case is being driven by three key drivers (a) rapidly depleting resources, (b) regulation and (c) customers. Depending on the kind of industry and location, each of the drivers vary.

But because the domain is inter-disciplinary, there

are opportunities for professionals at all levels.

Given that this space is emerging, maximum learning and understanding will happen through news sources.

Preparing to engage in this domain

First, it is important for professionals aspiring to transition, to understand what this space entails; whether it is right for them and to recognize transferrable skills that they may bring.

Step 1: Read up on the space

These days it is easy to get lost in the clutter of cyberspace and go from one-link to another without really internalizing anything. Hence I recommend books to get a foundation of what is happening and pick up the language.

Some good foundation building books are:

1. Green to Gold (Authors: Daniel C. Esty , Andrew S. Winston)

2. Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy

3. Plan 4.0: mobilizing to save civilization (Lester Brown)

From an Indian policy perspective, the National Action Plan on Climate Change is a concise and quick read that articulates the Indian policy view and is a MUST read for any aspirant in this space planning to work in India.

As you read up on the space, focus on the language: key terms, concepts, movements, key organizations, etc. that will help you synthesize news that is emerging in this space.

Step 2: Stay updated with news in the space

Given that this space is emerging, maximum learning and understanding will happen through news sources. There are specialized news sources that deliver daily, weekly and monthly happenings, some of which are:

1. India Carbon Outlook*

2. Environmental Leader

transitioning into sustainability as a

career: the perspective of a hiring manager

To get a feel of the space, there is nothing better than engaging in a 'live conversation' and meeting people at trade-fairs, conferences and other meets. The date books of the news sources will keep you upto-date on such programs

P E R S P E C T I V E

Pawan Mehra is Managing Director at cKinetics,

a sustainability accelerator that provides

operational consulting and strategic services to

shape scalable sustainability solutions within

industry and communities.

Pawan Mehra

Managing Director ,

cKinetics

There is no single industry that makes up the sustainability domain

Brooke Anderson's Flickr Photostream

Transferable skills hold the key especially for senior managers

The above 3 basic steps would give you an insight into opportunities that exist as also enable you to identify the transferrable skills (a) as you seek to enter the domain and (b) as you engage in conversation with prospective employers. The transferable skills can be found in functional areas (like project management, analytical and research skills, etc. which many sustainability firms need) or in industry expertise (like consumer durables and understanding role of labels and consumer requirements in designing green products).

This issue is far more crucial for senior managers because they have to go further than the younger recruits to demonstrate how they can add value and justify their compensation.

After this, it is like any other career search:

Step 4: Make a list of your drivers and needs

Step 5: Identify the firms that align with your drivers and needs.

Just like with any career transition, be prepared to demonstrate that you are committed to learn. For the right opportunity, this might entail taking a pay-cut and/ or joining at a lower level.

And getting your foot-in-the-door and entering the industry is only the beginning. Thereafter the rules of the game are similar to that of other rapidly emerging industries: be a constant learner and make yourself invaluable.

3. SolveClimate News

4. Sustainable Brands

5. GreenBiz

* is the only India focused daily news service

If there is a topic in particular that you want to track, then in my experience, nothing beats Google Alerts.

Step 3: Start interacting with existing professionals

Today there is no shortage of venues to connect with existing sustainability professionals. You can eavesdrop by joining e-groups of the above listed organizations (on linkedin, google groups, etc.) and tracking member discussions, or you can also join specialized groups like Green India Google group, Soaring Opps, etc.

To get a feel of the space, there is nothing better than engaging in a 'live conversation' and meeting people at trade-fairs, conferences and other meets. The date books of many of the news sources mentioned above will keep you upto-date on such programs.

Steps 1 – 3 sound obvious (and they are) but only very few aspirants looking at this space really make the effort. Chances are that if you are reading this article, you are already making that effort.

38 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 39SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

“What do you know about India's National Action Plan on Climate Change?”

…”huh?”

“How do you feel corporates will be impacted by the Perform-Achieve-Trade scheme?”

…”huh?”

“Are you familiar with any emerging requirements / standards for business to become more sustainable?”

…”no idea”

Over 90% of my phone interviews play like the monologue above and end predictably: “no go”. The 'sustainability bandwagon' is attracting attention from hordes of professionals from diverse backgrounds; the vast majority of whom are unlikely to even get a chance to participate in this emerging industry.

This article is specifically for 'non-sustainability' professionals looking to enter this domain: senior managers to recent graduates.

Understanding that sustainability is inter-disciplinary

There is no single industry that makes up the sustainability domain, but rather it is an inter-disciplinary field that brings together functions that have existed for a long time. Sustainability brings together functions around environmental engineering, environmental and climate finance, production and design, energy production and efficiency, etc.

What has been happening in the last few years is the growing awareness of how these functions are inter-related to solve the challenge of minimizing resource utilization (and ideally going to zero): be it energy, water or other natural resources. The business case is being driven by three key drivers (a) rapidly depleting resources, (b) regulation and (c) customers. Depending on the kind of industry and location, each of the drivers vary.

But because the domain is inter-disciplinary, there

are opportunities for professionals at all levels.

Given that this space is emerging, maximum learning and understanding will happen through news sources.

Preparing to engage in this domain

First, it is important for professionals aspiring to transition, to understand what this space entails; whether it is right for them and to recognize transferrable skills that they may bring.

Step 1: Read up on the space

These days it is easy to get lost in the clutter of cyberspace and go from one-link to another without really internalizing anything. Hence I recommend books to get a foundation of what is happening and pick up the language.

Some good foundation building books are:

1. Green to Gold (Authors: Daniel C. Esty , Andrew S. Winston)

2. Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy

3. Plan 4.0: mobilizing to save civilization (Lester Brown)

From an Indian policy perspective, the National Action Plan on Climate Change is a concise and quick read that articulates the Indian policy view and is a MUST read for any aspirant in this space planning to work in India.

As you read up on the space, focus on the language: key terms, concepts, movements, key organizations, etc. that will help you synthesize news that is emerging in this space.

Step 2: Stay updated with news in the space

Given that this space is emerging, maximum learning and understanding will happen through news sources. There are specialized news sources that deliver daily, weekly and monthly happenings, some of which are:

1. India Carbon Outlook*

2. Environmental Leader

transitioning into sustainability as a

career: the perspective of a hiring manager

To get a feel of the space, there is nothing better than engaging in a 'live conversation' and meeting people at trade-fairs, conferences and other meets. The date books of the news sources will keep you upto-date on such programs

P E R S P E C T I V E

Pawan Mehra is Managing Director at cKinetics,

a sustainability accelerator that provides

operational consulting and strategic services to

shape scalable sustainability solutions within

industry and communities.

Pawan Mehra

Managing Director ,

cKinetics

There is no single industry that makes up the sustainability domain

Brooke Anderson's Flickr Photostream

the sustainability mba:What does it mean for global companies and the emerging

green workplace?

40 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 41SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

*Adapted from Dunphy, D., Andrew Griffiths and Suzanne Benn. Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability: A guide for leaders and change agents of the future.

entire system and identify new ways of assessing and measuring progress across diverse working groups.

- Bring new frameworks, principles and models to thinking about performance, branding, sourcing and financial results.

- Bring new change leadership skills that build on strengths and generate collaborative approaches to complex problems.

- Bring curiosity about new approaches in order to draw on what market leaders are doing to differentiate themselves in the eyes of internal and external customers who are looking for

additional value and impact.

Engaging stakeholders – Today's leader must be able to engage key people at all levels of an organization and be able to tap into social networks to identify best practices in a rapidly changing world.

- Identify the areas of the organization that will benefit most from improved performance resulting from sustainability initiatives (operations, marketing, sales, facilities, human resources).

- Gather a group of internal champions

(employees, managers, leaders, etc) to create an initial approach and secure short-term successes.

- Remain connected with parts of the organization that have not yet understood the benefits as a coach and champion.

Assessing the Territory – Today's leader must be able to quickly identify where the organization is along the continuum of sustainability practices, how to set achievable goals, and how to measure progress.

- Identify the major strategic drivers for increasing sustainability actions (competitive advantage, customer demand, product differentiation, etc.)

- Identify organizational readiness

- Choose an assessment approach (GRI, etc.) appropriate for the business, set benchmarks and begin to track progress.

Designing to Scale – Today's leader must be able to find ways to quickly gain traction around a sustainability initiative by securing short-term successes that improve the bottom line.

- Target a few areas for early action where progress can be easily seen (i.e. recycling, waste reduction, cost reduction, etc.)

Carl Shneebeck, Cynthia

Scott and Ryan Cabinte,

Presidio Graduate

School

Carl Shneebeck

Cynthia Scott

Ryan Cabinte

The business benefits of undertaking the sustainability journey have been well documented. But what about the benefits of hiring managers with MBA degrees or Executive Certificates in Sustainability? What should global companies understand about the graduates of sustainable MBA or executive certificate programs?

One well-understood benefit of hiring sustainability MBAs is obviously substantive domain insight and expertise. Sustainability requires measuring and managing the social, environmental, and financial aspects of the value of a company, something traditional MBAs may not be familiar with. A sustainability MBA graduate can supply the company with needed literacy in specific concepts and practices like supply chain management, GHG measurement, CSR/GRI reporting, and life cycle assessment.

A less understood benefit is the type of manager produced by sustainability MBA and executive programs. Successful corporate sustainability journeys (and the green economy generally) require a relatively undervalued sets of skills that enable these employees to: take an integrated, interdisciplinary, approach to problem solving; collaborate with a diverse group of stakeholders; break through entrenched zero sum and short term mentalities; and integrate solutions in every department of a company. Sustainability managers must be systems-thinkers who transcend department-specific, discipline-specific, and sector-specific managerial mentalities.

Without such leaders and employees, corporate sustainability journeys tend to stall, remain superficial, or capture benefits non-optimally. Conversely, global companies that develop their managers' systems-thinking skills tend to navigate

their sustainability journeys with more ease, impact, longevity and mission alignment. This is because they treat the company holistically as a dynamic learning organization, not as a set of initiatives, as MIT's management guru Peter Senge has explained in The Fifth Discipline. While systems-thinking is not unique to sustainability management, it is foundational for sustainability managers because it is so integral to our understanding of ecological systems, and facilitates a common language to describe both ecological and social phenomena.

Graduates from sustainable management programs are trained to help companies to better

align themselves with the financial, social, and ecological systems that surround and authorize them. They are therefore tailored for the new future of business—where natural capital is increasingly scarce, but human capital is increasingly abundant.

A model for understanding what sustainability MBAs know

and will do

Since a company is viewed as a learning organization, it is no surprise that models of corporate sustainability management begin by placing a given company on a learning curve. Increasingly, organizations are conducting assessments and strategy development to move themselves through the 6 stages of sustainability activation.

Other models may have more or fewer levels, such as Bob Willard's 5 Stage model, but the point is that in order to move a company along this sustainability path, sustainability managers need capabilities in at least six areas that are underserved by traditional MBA programs:

Providing new perspectives – Today's leader must possess the ability to map and navigate an

Rejection

Non Responsiveness

Compliance

Efficiency

Strategic Proactivity

SustainingCorporation

Phases ofSustainable Adaptation*

Time

Sustainability

MBA programs

also feature a

heavier dose of

leadership

development,

change

management, and

cross-sector

partnership training

than traditional

MBA programs

P E R S P E C T I V E

opensourceway's Flickr Photostream

the sustainability mba:What does it mean for global companies and the emerging

green workplace?

40 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 41SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

*Adapted from Dunphy, D., Andrew Griffiths and Suzanne Benn. Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability: A guide for leaders and change agents of the future.

entire system and identify new ways of assessing and measuring progress across diverse working groups.

- Bring new frameworks, principles and models to thinking about performance, branding, sourcing and financial results.

- Bring new change leadership skills that build on strengths and generate collaborative approaches to complex problems.

- Bring curiosity about new approaches in order to draw on what market leaders are doing to differentiate themselves in the eyes of internal and external customers who are looking for

additional value and impact.

Engaging stakeholders – Today's leader must be able to engage key people at all levels of an organization and be able to tap into social networks to identify best practices in a rapidly changing world.

- Identify the areas of the organization that will benefit most from improved performance resulting from sustainability initiatives (operations, marketing, sales, facilities, human resources).

- Gather a group of internal champions

(employees, managers, leaders, etc) to create an initial approach and secure short-term successes.

- Remain connected with parts of the organization that have not yet understood the benefits as a coach and champion.

Assessing the Territory – Today's leader must be able to quickly identify where the organization is along the continuum of sustainability practices, how to set achievable goals, and how to measure progress.

- Identify the major strategic drivers for increasing sustainability actions (competitive advantage, customer demand, product differentiation, etc.)

- Identify organizational readiness

- Choose an assessment approach (GRI, etc.) appropriate for the business, set benchmarks and begin to track progress.

Designing to Scale – Today's leader must be able to find ways to quickly gain traction around a sustainability initiative by securing short-term successes that improve the bottom line.

- Target a few areas for early action where progress can be easily seen (i.e. recycling, waste reduction, cost reduction, etc.)

Carl Shneebeck, Cynthia

Scott and Ryan Cabinte,

Presidio Graduate

School

Carl Shneebeck

Cynthia Scott

Ryan Cabinte

The business benefits of undertaking the sustainability journey have been well documented. But what about the benefits of hiring managers with MBA degrees or Executive Certificates in Sustainability? What should global companies understand about the graduates of sustainable MBA or executive certificate programs?

One well-understood benefit of hiring sustainability MBAs is obviously substantive domain insight and expertise. Sustainability requires measuring and managing the social, environmental, and financial aspects of the value of a company, something traditional MBAs may not be familiar with. A sustainability MBA graduate can supply the company with needed literacy in specific concepts and practices like supply chain management, GHG measurement, CSR/GRI reporting, and life cycle assessment.

A less understood benefit is the type of manager produced by sustainability MBA and executive programs. Successful corporate sustainability journeys (and the green economy generally) require a relatively undervalued sets of skills that enable these employees to: take an integrated, interdisciplinary, approach to problem solving; collaborate with a diverse group of stakeholders; break through entrenched zero sum and short term mentalities; and integrate solutions in every department of a company. Sustainability managers must be systems-thinkers who transcend department-specific, discipline-specific, and sector-specific managerial mentalities.

Without such leaders and employees, corporate sustainability journeys tend to stall, remain superficial, or capture benefits non-optimally. Conversely, global companies that develop their managers' systems-thinking skills tend to navigate

their sustainability journeys with more ease, impact, longevity and mission alignment. This is because they treat the company holistically as a dynamic learning organization, not as a set of initiatives, as MIT's management guru Peter Senge has explained in The Fifth Discipline. While systems-thinking is not unique to sustainability management, it is foundational for sustainability managers because it is so integral to our understanding of ecological systems, and facilitates a common language to describe both ecological and social phenomena.

Graduates from sustainable management programs are trained to help companies to better

align themselves with the financial, social, and ecological systems that surround and authorize them. They are therefore tailored for the new future of business—where natural capital is increasingly scarce, but human capital is increasingly abundant.

A model for understanding what sustainability MBAs know

and will do

Since a company is viewed as a learning organization, it is no surprise that models of corporate sustainability management begin by placing a given company on a learning curve. Increasingly, organizations are conducting assessments and strategy development to move themselves through the 6 stages of sustainability activation.

Other models may have more or fewer levels, such as Bob Willard's 5 Stage model, but the point is that in order to move a company along this sustainability path, sustainability managers need capabilities in at least six areas that are underserved by traditional MBA programs:

Providing new perspectives – Today's leader must possess the ability to map and navigate an

Rejection

Non Responsiveness

Compliance

Efficiency

Strategic Proactivity

SustainingCorporation

Phases ofSustainable Adaptation*

Time

Sustainability

MBA programs

also feature a

heavier dose of

leadership

development,

change

management, and

cross-sector

partnership training

than traditional

MBA programs

P E R S P E C T I V E

opensourceway's Flickr Photostream

- Map out short term and long term strategies

- Identify ways to make the organization aware of progress

Mobilizing and Implementing – Today's leader must be able to mobilize and champion sustainability within the organization to spread the word about what is happening and how to get involved.

- Provide knowledge, encouragement and resources to support actions

- Measure progress and share with the key stakeholders of the organization

- Acknowledge progress broadly and celebrate successes

- Continually gather new ideas for next steps

Monitoring and Evaluating

Today's leader must be able to quickly evaluate the success of an initiative and apply positive outcomes to future projects.

- Translate measurement into financial and social impact

- Reach out to the organization to identify new areas of focus

- Ensure that the organization is measuring what matters

It is usually not adequate to teach or learn these skills in a few courses tacked on to a regular MBA program. Sustainability should be embedded into every course. This is because conventional business thinking is often blind to or at odds with sustainability's concept of 'shared business value.' While sustainability MBAs obviously must understand standard models of interpreting business value, they also must understand the newer, more disruptive models that seek to remedy the problematic systemic effects of business as usual. For example, sustainability MBAs shouldn't just learn cost accounting; they

42 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 43SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Cynthia Scott, Carl Shneebeck, and Ryan

Cabinte teach at the Presidio Graduate

School. For the past 7 years Presidio

Graduate School, based in San Francisco,

California has been the pioneer of creating a

rigorous MBA and MPA curriculum that

offers a broad range of students the skills

and tools to lead the rethinking of business

strategies and implementing new behaviors.

Over the past decade, India has been emerging as a major industrial force with our corporate leaders competing with, and in certain cases gaining over, the global giants. This has also meant that the measure for responsible performance for these businesses no longer covers just business profitability but also encompasses evaluation of their social and environmental action. Hence over the last decade, a majority of Indian companies have started treading the path of sustainability.

To catalyze a corporate's progression on the path to sustainability, it is essential for an organization to have suitable personnel spearheading this transition. A positive step in this direction is the appointment of skilled and passionate 'Heads of Sustainability' in a large number of Indian companies. Even though the designations of these personnel vary from Chief Sustainability Officer, Director-Sustainability, Head of Sustainability and so on, their key role is to ensure incorporation of sustainability as a central tenet in the business action.

In order to better understand the motivations, challenges and ambitions of these leaders, Sustainability Outlook caught up with the Heads of Sustainability at WIPRO, Cognizant and Tata Power to understand what it means to be a corporate sustainability leader, their career journey and learnings across the way, and their suggestions for aspiring sustainability professionals in India.

Discovering sustainability as a career!

These days, a number of universities in India (like TERI University, IP University, Gujarat University) are introducing specialized courses related to environmental sustainability both at diploma, graduate and postgraduate levels to cater to the surging demand for professionals trained in environmental issues . However, such specialized courses are only a recent trend given their increasing need felt by the industry. Until recently, no such specialized courses related to sustainability were available. Hence it is not too

surprising that current corporate sustainability leaders hail from educational backgrounds in traditional focus areas of study. During their experience in the industry and their multi-disciplinary roles, they gained expertise in sustainability related areas and specialized in them.

The various facets of sustainability dilemma are what attracted P.S. Narayan, the Head of Sustainability Practice at WIPRO Limited to the field. After working with the organization for more than 15 years in various multi- disciplinary business roles, Narayan eventually took over as the Head of the Sustainability Practice. While talking about his motivation for joining this field, he says, “The unique complexity of sustainability drew me into this field. My colleague, Anurag Behra, who started the education program at Wipro, is also one of the prime movers of sustainability in this company and after talking to him, I was encouraged to enter this field - that's where it all started.”

On the role of the corporate world on the sustainability plane, Narayan believes, “A business enterprise is one of the few places where all interests- economic, ecological, and social- are of equal importance. So it is our duty as a responsible business to try to find answers to these problems.”

For Premkumar Pandurangam at Cognizant, it was a chance incident that propelled the move into sustainability domain as the Director-Sustainability at Cognizant Technology Solutions. After spending more than 18 years in the global outsourcing services industry, as a core IT professional working on technology related projects and business development, Premkumar had never imagined a sustainability position in his career path. “Reading about the work of Dr. Rajendra Pachauri and Al Gore when they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 sowed the seeds of my interest in sustainability, and I started following up on sustainability related stories originating from various parts of the world” he says. “When Cognizant decided to focus on these aspects by bringing together a sustainability team, I was

sustainability: thenext major career

destinationRoselin Dey,

India Carbon Outlook

P E R S P E C T I V E

should learn total cost accounting along a product and company's life cycle.

This is true for every business discipline, from marketing to operations. Thoroughly understanding the strengths and weaknesses of old and new approaches to business builds the competency and courage to undertake the substantial changes in business behavior that will be required to build a sustainable world.

Sustainability MBA programs also feature a heavier dose of leadership

development, change management, and cross-sector partnership training than traditional MBA programs. Implementing sustainability requires integrative, systemic, and change-oriented efforts. Preparing managers to be Chief Sustainability Officers, Directors of Corporate Social Responsibility, Entrepreneurs, Product Developers, Supply Chain architects, etc. requires mangers to be able to speak multiple internal departmental languages. Moreover, truly sustainable companies will also find they must work externally with both public and private enterprises to create a 4th sector, where innovation and collaboration thrive to create new options for cities, education and industry.

Sustainability

should be

embedded into

every course. This

is because

conventional

business thinking

is often blind to or

at odds with

sustainability's

concept of shared

business value I know for a fact that I want to continue working in this field, even after I retire – Avinash Patkar, Tata Power

netsnake's Flickr Photostream

- Map out short term and long term strategies

- Identify ways to make the organization aware of progress

Mobilizing and Implementing – Today's leader must be able to mobilize and champion sustainability within the organization to spread the word about what is happening and how to get involved.

- Provide knowledge, encouragement and resources to support actions

- Measure progress and share with the key stakeholders of the organization

- Acknowledge progress broadly and celebrate successes

- Continually gather new ideas for next steps

Monitoring and Evaluating

Today's leader must be able to quickly evaluate the success of an initiative and apply positive outcomes to future projects.

- Translate measurement into financial and social impact

- Reach out to the organization to identify new areas of focus

- Ensure that the organization is measuring what matters

It is usually not adequate to teach or learn these skills in a few courses tacked on to a regular MBA program. Sustainability should be embedded into every course. This is because conventional business thinking is often blind to or at odds with sustainability's concept of 'shared business value.' While sustainability MBAs obviously must understand standard models of interpreting business value, they also must understand the newer, more disruptive models that seek to remedy the problematic systemic effects of business as usual. For example, sustainability MBAs shouldn't just learn cost accounting; they

42 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 43SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Cynthia Scott, Carl Shneebeck, and Ryan

Cabinte teach at the Presidio Graduate

School. For the past 7 years Presidio

Graduate School, based in San Francisco,

California has been the pioneer of creating a

rigorous MBA and MPA curriculum that

offers a broad range of students the skills

and tools to lead the rethinking of business

strategies and implementing new behaviors.

Over the past decade, India has been emerging as a major industrial force with our corporate leaders competing with, and in certain cases gaining over, the global giants. This has also meant that the measure for responsible performance for these businesses no longer covers just business profitability but also encompasses evaluation of their social and environmental action. Hence over the last decade, a majority of Indian companies have started treading the path of sustainability.

To catalyze a corporate's progression on the path to sustainability, it is essential for an organization to have suitable personnel spearheading this transition. A positive step in this direction is the appointment of skilled and passionate 'Heads of Sustainability' in a large number of Indian companies. Even though the designations of these personnel vary from Chief Sustainability Officer, Director-Sustainability, Head of Sustainability and so on, their key role is to ensure incorporation of sustainability as a central tenet in the business action.

In order to better understand the motivations, challenges and ambitions of these leaders, Sustainability Outlook caught up with the Heads of Sustainability at WIPRO, Cognizant and Tata Power to understand what it means to be a corporate sustainability leader, their career journey and learnings across the way, and their suggestions for aspiring sustainability professionals in India.

Discovering sustainability as a career!

These days, a number of universities in India (like TERI University, IP University, Gujarat University) are introducing specialized courses related to environmental sustainability both at diploma, graduate and postgraduate levels to cater to the surging demand for professionals trained in environmental issues . However, such specialized courses are only a recent trend given their increasing need felt by the industry. Until recently, no such specialized courses related to sustainability were available. Hence it is not too

surprising that current corporate sustainability leaders hail from educational backgrounds in traditional focus areas of study. During their experience in the industry and their multi-disciplinary roles, they gained expertise in sustainability related areas and specialized in them.

The various facets of sustainability dilemma are what attracted P.S. Narayan, the Head of Sustainability Practice at WIPRO Limited to the field. After working with the organization for more than 15 years in various multi- disciplinary business roles, Narayan eventually took over as the Head of the Sustainability Practice. While talking about his motivation for joining this field, he says, “The unique complexity of sustainability drew me into this field. My colleague, Anurag Behra, who started the education program at Wipro, is also one of the prime movers of sustainability in this company and after talking to him, I was encouraged to enter this field - that's where it all started.”

On the role of the corporate world on the sustainability plane, Narayan believes, “A business enterprise is one of the few places where all interests- economic, ecological, and social- are of equal importance. So it is our duty as a responsible business to try to find answers to these problems.”

For Premkumar Pandurangam at Cognizant, it was a chance incident that propelled the move into sustainability domain as the Director-Sustainability at Cognizant Technology Solutions. After spending more than 18 years in the global outsourcing services industry, as a core IT professional working on technology related projects and business development, Premkumar had never imagined a sustainability position in his career path. “Reading about the work of Dr. Rajendra Pachauri and Al Gore when they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 sowed the seeds of my interest in sustainability, and I started following up on sustainability related stories originating from various parts of the world” he says. “When Cognizant decided to focus on these aspects by bringing together a sustainability team, I was

sustainability: thenext major career

destinationRoselin Dey,

India Carbon Outlook

P E R S P E C T I V E

should learn total cost accounting along a product and company's life cycle.

This is true for every business discipline, from marketing to operations. Thoroughly understanding the strengths and weaknesses of old and new approaches to business builds the competency and courage to undertake the substantial changes in business behavior that will be required to build a sustainable world.

Sustainability MBA programs also feature a heavier dose of leadership

development, change management, and cross-sector partnership training than traditional MBA programs. Implementing sustainability requires integrative, systemic, and change-oriented efforts. Preparing managers to be Chief Sustainability Officers, Directors of Corporate Social Responsibility, Entrepreneurs, Product Developers, Supply Chain architects, etc. requires mangers to be able to speak multiple internal departmental languages. Moreover, truly sustainable companies will also find they must work externally with both public and private enterprises to create a 4th sector, where innovation and collaboration thrive to create new options for cities, education and industry.

Sustainability

should be

embedded into

every course. This

is because

conventional

business thinking

is often blind to or

at odds with

sustainability's

concept of shared

business value I know for a fact that I want to continue working in this field, even after I retire – Avinash Patkar, Tata Power

netsnake's Flickr Photostream

interested in this position and took the plunge,” says Premkumar. He started his sustainability journey by leading Cognizant's environmental stewardship program- Go Green- and went on to take the responsibility for Occupational, Health and Safety initiatives across the organization. “The last three years have been very interesting and fulfilling for me in terms of a career that gives me opportunities to bring about real change and helps nurture a better world to live in,” says Premkumar.

On the other hand, Avinash Patkar- currently holding the position of Chief Sustainability Officer at Tata Power - had a gradual career transformation into the sustainability arena. Patkar spent more than 30 years in the US working mostly with consulting firms in areas of air pollution and program management after completing his studies there. During his last five years in the US, he worked with a carbon capture process company. “That is when in about 2002, I started thinking about focusing on climate change and its mitigation and by extension sustainability,” says Patkar.

'Head of Sustainability' - What does the role entail?

Overall, it seems that sustainability related target setting, communication, employee awareness and education are amongst the key roles of the Heads of Sustainability along with other industry-specific roles and responsibilities.

Narayan says “As the Head of Sustainability at Wipro, I manage the Eco Eye program and the community engagement program called Wipro Cares. It is my role to recalibrate goals and targets, formulate action plans to achieve these targets, and steer it patiently and correctly in the right direction. I am also engaged with the HR department, since we are talking about engaging leadership and employees in the sustainability initiatives. Other core levels include facilities and infrastructure group, IT group and even the legal group for the various aspects of code of conducts that we follow.”

At Cognizant, Premkumar is responsible for defining sustainability policies and sustainability parameters, tracking and reporting the company's

performance on those parameters, EHS management systems, certification etc. He is also

responsible for internal and external communications on sustainability to articulate Cognizant's sustainability initiatives.

At Tata Power, Patkar supervises the environment and sustainability related initiatives. “We have aligned our projects and initiatives around 4 dimensions – environment and bio diversity, people (employees), community and customers. For each dimension and stakeholder of

sustainability, we organize several activities. We have also started the Green Manufacturing Index for each plant location, and it is up to each plant management team to set up their own goals and achieve them,” says Patkar.

Carrots and Sticks for Sustainability Professionals

There are clearly a few things to be learnt about the domain from the experiences of the existing sustainability professionals, both in terms of lessons learnt and challenges faced:

ØStill a budding concept

Sustainability is a long term concept, versus business goals which are set for much shorter timelines. This leads to challenges for professionals trying to put sustainability interventions in place. “Sustainability as a paradigm is new to most business corporations and so it is going to take time to adapt and institutionalize it. We need time and patience to socialize the concept and communicate this well across the internal stakeholders, starting from senior-level management to all levels of employees- this is an ongoing journey even today,” says Narayan.

Sharing his experience, Avinash Patkar observed “Changing the mindset and the culture has been a bit tough – changing culture is not like changing a shirt, it takes time. A key challenge is justifying the sustainability related standards that we are trying to set for the company, especially practicing sustainability beyond compliance.”

44 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 45SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Ø Need for Awareness

Many a times, there isn't enough awareness and philanthropy is often mixed up with corporate responsibility and sustainability. Although sustainability is integral for businesses to survive, yet it is often difficult to engage all the pillars of the business to concur on the kind, need and scope of initiatives. Premkumar feels “Sustainable practices ensure customer confidence, thus enabling business growth and reducing risks and associated costs. However, this is not apparent to all stakeholders in a business, and needs to be explained to ensure everyone is on board. This is the exciting and challenging part of my job.”

Ø Conflict of interest

A major challenge for the sustainability professionals is how to work with multiple stakeholder groups internally while trying to progress towards common goals. While the role of a 'Head of Sustainability' might seem as an attractive one, the role often requires the personnel to be at loggerheads with the core 'business minded' departments of the company. “One of the groups that I work closely with is the finance department. Since some of the technologies may not fulfill the conventional business financial expectations - I ensure that the investments make financial sense, yet help us set sustainability benchmarks,” says Narayan of WIPRO.

Ø Finances would always be a concern

Premkumar from Cognizant feels that many stakeholders in the business are not aware of the benefits of sustainable practices such as potential revenue growth, cost reduction, and brand

enhancement - thus, when it comes to sustainability, it becomes important to communicate internally as well as externally. Avinash Patkar echoes the sentiment - “One of the things that I have learnt by reading and interacting with national and international experts in this field is the Triple Bottom-line idea of sustainability. The financial bottom-line always plays a role. But the idea is to also address environmental and social impacts and to mitigate them.”

Ø Putting together the right team

Sustainability is an emerging field still catching up as a major career choice for professionals, and hence there are a limited number of professionals in the space. To kickoff a sustainability intervention in a company, it is essential to get the right mix and right talent in the team. While talking about the strategy for building his team, Avinash Patkar says, “A key challenge was to find the right kind of people to work in this department since it is a new field. We adapted by hiring people who had an engineering background with a passion for working in a sustainability related field. Then we trained and mentored them and this process has worked well for us so far.”

What can an aspiring sustainability professional expect?

Clearly one should consider sustainability as a career option, provided they have a passion and interest in this area. Premkumar recommends staying on top of the industry trends, “According to me, those who are passionate about sustainability and believe in the benefits of

Changing the mindset and the culture has been a bit tough – changing culture is not like changing a shirt, it takes time – Avinash Patkar, Tata Power

The last three years have been very interesting and fulfilling for me in terms of a career that gives me opportunities to bring about real change and helps nurture a better world to live in - Premkumar Pandurangam, Cognizant

quapan's Flickr Photostream

Gtalan's Flickr Photostream

interested in this position and took the plunge,” says Premkumar. He started his sustainability journey by leading Cognizant's environmental stewardship program- Go Green- and went on to take the responsibility for Occupational, Health and Safety initiatives across the organization. “The last three years have been very interesting and fulfilling for me in terms of a career that gives me opportunities to bring about real change and helps nurture a better world to live in,” says Premkumar.

On the other hand, Avinash Patkar- currently holding the position of Chief Sustainability Officer at Tata Power - had a gradual career transformation into the sustainability arena. Patkar spent more than 30 years in the US working mostly with consulting firms in areas of air pollution and program management after completing his studies there. During his last five years in the US, he worked with a carbon capture process company. “That is when in about 2002, I started thinking about focusing on climate change and its mitigation and by extension sustainability,” says Patkar.

'Head of Sustainability' - What does the role entail?

Overall, it seems that sustainability related target setting, communication, employee awareness and education are amongst the key roles of the Heads of Sustainability along with other industry-specific roles and responsibilities.

Narayan says “As the Head of Sustainability at Wipro, I manage the Eco Eye program and the community engagement program called Wipro Cares. It is my role to recalibrate goals and targets, formulate action plans to achieve these targets, and steer it patiently and correctly in the right direction. I am also engaged with the HR department, since we are talking about engaging leadership and employees in the sustainability initiatives. Other core levels include facilities and infrastructure group, IT group and even the legal group for the various aspects of code of conducts that we follow.”

At Cognizant, Premkumar is responsible for defining sustainability policies and sustainability parameters, tracking and reporting the company's

performance on those parameters, EHS management systems, certification etc. He is also

responsible for internal and external communications on sustainability to articulate Cognizant's sustainability initiatives.

At Tata Power, Patkar supervises the environment and sustainability related initiatives. “We have aligned our projects and initiatives around 4 dimensions – environment and bio diversity, people (employees), community and customers. For each dimension and stakeholder of

sustainability, we organize several activities. We have also started the Green Manufacturing Index for each plant location, and it is up to each plant management team to set up their own goals and achieve them,” says Patkar.

Carrots and Sticks for Sustainability Professionals

There are clearly a few things to be learnt about the domain from the experiences of the existing sustainability professionals, both in terms of lessons learnt and challenges faced:

ØStill a budding concept

Sustainability is a long term concept, versus business goals which are set for much shorter timelines. This leads to challenges for professionals trying to put sustainability interventions in place. “Sustainability as a paradigm is new to most business corporations and so it is going to take time to adapt and institutionalize it. We need time and patience to socialize the concept and communicate this well across the internal stakeholders, starting from senior-level management to all levels of employees- this is an ongoing journey even today,” says Narayan.

Sharing his experience, Avinash Patkar observed “Changing the mindset and the culture has been a bit tough – changing culture is not like changing a shirt, it takes time. A key challenge is justifying the sustainability related standards that we are trying to set for the company, especially practicing sustainability beyond compliance.”

44 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 45SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Ø Need for Awareness

Many a times, there isn't enough awareness and philanthropy is often mixed up with corporate responsibility and sustainability. Although sustainability is integral for businesses to survive, yet it is often difficult to engage all the pillars of the business to concur on the kind, need and scope of initiatives. Premkumar feels “Sustainable practices ensure customer confidence, thus enabling business growth and reducing risks and associated costs. However, this is not apparent to all stakeholders in a business, and needs to be explained to ensure everyone is on board. This is the exciting and challenging part of my job.”

Ø Conflict of interest

A major challenge for the sustainability professionals is how to work with multiple stakeholder groups internally while trying to progress towards common goals. While the role of a 'Head of Sustainability' might seem as an attractive one, the role often requires the personnel to be at loggerheads with the core 'business minded' departments of the company. “One of the groups that I work closely with is the finance department. Since some of the technologies may not fulfill the conventional business financial expectations - I ensure that the investments make financial sense, yet help us set sustainability benchmarks,” says Narayan of WIPRO.

Ø Finances would always be a concern

Premkumar from Cognizant feels that many stakeholders in the business are not aware of the benefits of sustainable practices such as potential revenue growth, cost reduction, and brand

enhancement - thus, when it comes to sustainability, it becomes important to communicate internally as well as externally. Avinash Patkar echoes the sentiment - “One of the things that I have learnt by reading and interacting with national and international experts in this field is the Triple Bottom-line idea of sustainability. The financial bottom-line always plays a role. But the idea is to also address environmental and social impacts and to mitigate them.”

Ø Putting together the right team

Sustainability is an emerging field still catching up as a major career choice for professionals, and hence there are a limited number of professionals in the space. To kickoff a sustainability intervention in a company, it is essential to get the right mix and right talent in the team. While talking about the strategy for building his team, Avinash Patkar says, “A key challenge was to find the right kind of people to work in this department since it is a new field. We adapted by hiring people who had an engineering background with a passion for working in a sustainability related field. Then we trained and mentored them and this process has worked well for us so far.”

What can an aspiring sustainability professional expect?

Clearly one should consider sustainability as a career option, provided they have a passion and interest in this area. Premkumar recommends staying on top of the industry trends, “According to me, those who are passionate about sustainability and believe in the benefits of

Changing the mindset and the culture has been a bit tough – changing culture is not like changing a shirt, it takes time – Avinash Patkar, Tata Power

The last three years have been very interesting and fulfilling for me in terms of a career that gives me opportunities to bring about real change and helps nurture a better world to live in - Premkumar Pandurangam, Cognizant

quapan's Flickr Photostream

Gtalan's Flickr Photostream

sustainable practices would make good sustainability professionals and bring about a transformation in their workplace and the world at large.” Premkumar feels that educational background is useful but not sufficient and one should constantly read about sustainability-related developments around the world.

Patkar passionately recommends sustainability as a career path, especially to the younger generation coming right out of college. He feels that professionals with engineering and science background should look at 'sustainability' as a multi-dimensional evolution as an individual and a professional. There are very few roles that will require you to have such a wide angle view of business, and will require you to work with such a wide variety of stakeholders- it is a great space to be in, provided you are open to new challenges like these!”

While it is still early days for sustainability as a core business tenet in India as well as globally, it is already emerging as an important career choice. Until the time sustainability becomes a part of the DNA of every world class company, everyone will need to work hard towards it. When we think of a career in sustainability, it will most likely be a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, but there are clear signs that it will become a mainstream function in the coming years.

46 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 47SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Sustainability career survey snapshot 2011

M A R K E T P U L S E

Given that millions of green jobs are expected to be added in the coming decades, Sustainability is clearly emerging as a major career destination. Sustainability Outlook reached out to several hundred professionals to better understand the state of the sustainability workforce in India. More than 160 professionals reported information on a number of parameters about their personal profile, organisational profile, salary structure and current roles and responsibilities. A 'Sustainability Career Snapshot' based on these inputs is presented below.

Roselin Dey is currently working with the

India Carbon Outlook division of the

sustainability consulting firm cKinetics. She

holds a Masters degree in Natural Resource

Management from TERI University and has

previously worked with the climate change

campaign 350.org. She is passionate about

working on sustainability issues and

specialises in knowledge dissemination,

program management and communication

in this space.

4%

27%

48%

21%

21%

37%

42%

Participant Profile

www.santabanta.com

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

sustainable practices would make good sustainability professionals and bring about a transformation in their workplace and the world at large.” Premkumar feels that educational background is useful but not sufficient and one should constantly read about sustainability-related developments around the world.

Patkar passionately recommends sustainability as a career path, especially to the younger generation coming right out of college. He feels that professionals with engineering and science background should look at 'sustainability' as a multi-dimensional evolution as an individual and a professional. There are very few roles that will require you to have such a wide angle view of business, and will require you to work with such a wide variety of stakeholders- it is a great space to be in, provided you are open to new challenges like these!”

While it is still early days for sustainability as a core business tenet in India as well as globally, it is already emerging as an important career choice. Until the time sustainability becomes a part of the DNA of every world class company, everyone will need to work hard towards it. When we think of a career in sustainability, it will most likely be a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, but there are clear signs that it will become a mainstream function in the coming years.

46 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 47SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Sustainability career survey snapshot 2011

M A R K E T P U L S E

Given that millions of green jobs are expected to be added in the coming decades, Sustainability is clearly emerging as a major career destination. Sustainability Outlook reached out to several hundred professionals to better understand the state of the sustainability workforce in India. More than 160 professionals reported information on a number of parameters about their personal profile, organisational profile, salary structure and current roles and responsibilities. A 'Sustainability Career Snapshot' based on these inputs is presented below.

Roselin Dey is currently working with the

India Carbon Outlook division of the

sustainability consulting firm cKinetics. She

holds a Masters degree in Natural Resource

Management from TERI University and has

previously worked with the climate change

campaign 350.org. She is passionate about

working on sustainability issues and

specialises in knowledge dissemination,

program management and communication

in this space.

4%

27%

48%

21%

21%

37%

42%

Participant Profile

www.santabanta.com

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

48 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Motivation and Job Satisfaction

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Compensation and Break-up of Pay

49%51%

61%

39%

51%49%

48 SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK

Motivation and Job Satisfaction

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

20%0% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Compensation and Break-up of Pay

49%51%

61%

39%

51%49%

Green technology

PoweringIndia through

renewables

September, 2011

Gearing India towards Sustainability