Today’s generation must be provided with practical skills that will enable them to continue learning even after they leave schools, colleges, and universities to find a sustainable livelihood and live sustainably, said Prof Manoj K Arora, Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal University at its recent Leadership Summit 2022 on Global Sustainability & the Corporation. Featuring policy makers, leaders, and entrepreneurs, the two-day summit deep dived into the need for sustainability in businesses. Even as India looks at becoming a net zero emission country by 2070, it won’t be inaccurate to say that business enterprises must be a part of the solution to our question of sustainability.
But navigating this transition – from a traditional to sustainable model – raises tough questions. What does a sustainable model look like? How does this change the job landscape in India? Most companies’ struggle with incorporating the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ of people, planet, and profit holds them back from becoming a sustainable, future-ready organisation.
Here are the highlights from Day 1
Flagging off the summit, Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise insisted that every great business leader needs to persevere to make the world a better place. “There’s no simple answer to sustainable development. But we have to remember that as a race, we can’t compromise the needs of the future generations,” she said. Invoking the recent example of the pandemic, Shobana said that it made people more aware of their health and of those around them. Today, every single corporation is thinking more about their employees’ health. She went on to share her version of the 3Ps for business sustainability, which she had increased to five – care of people, being planet-friendly, inclusive prosperity, peace, and leveraging partnerships.
Sustainability and business performance
A recent IPCC report noted that India could face irreversible impacts of the climate crisis. Decarbonising the economy and daily lives is the only way to avoid the harsh impacts of climate change. The panel deep dived into the challenges businesses face in their sustainability journey and how they are trying to overcome them. Speaking about their efforts of decarbonisation, Mohit Bhargava, CEO – Renewable Energy Division, NTPC said, “Decarbonisation will largely happen due to our focus on renewable energy. We have a large coal-base capacity which we want to transition to a capacity that is less and less carbon intensive,” adding that the team is also working towards reducing water consumption in power plants.
Daimler India aims to move towards carbon neutral mobility by 2039. “In India, we planned to be carbon neutral by 2025. More than 75 percent of the energy we buy is sustainable. We’ve also linked the compensation of senior executives to sustainable goals,” said Satyakam Arya, CEO and MD, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles.
With a compelling vision to be the future of mobility, Mike Clarke, COO and CHRO, Hero MotoCorp highlighted how the company is investing in sustainable processes.
Kishore Jayaraman, President, Rolls-Royce, India, and South Asia revealed that they identified electrical and digital as the two pillars which will be the future. He said, “We started analysing data in all our processes and that evolved as we realised the future won’t be fossil fuels. We had to think differently and that’s how the electrical journey began for us.”
But the walk towards sustainability isn’t without challenges. The challenge in emerging economies, according to Srivatsan Iyer, Global CEO, Hero Future Energies, is the balance between economic growth and sustainability. “I believe that these challenges will be worked out as the world realises there’s no alternative,” he added. The panel also discussed how challenges could be turned into opportunities. The utilisation of ash from power plants is one such opportunity. Mohit mentioned that apart from using it in cement to build, ash has various other uses.
Developing organisational capabilities to meet sustainability goals
The ecological imbalance presents a crisis of unimaginable magnitude as the panel noted that the pressure towards being sustainable is now reaching a tipping point. One obvious solution to this crisis is how businesses use technology. “We have been developing fuel efficient mobility solutions. We have been the first to promote models with PS-6 regulations,” said Apurva Gupta, Chief Sustainability Officer, Hero MotoCorp.
Setting internal processes and targets is another way of mitigating challenges. Businesses today have a huge responsibility towards environmental preservation. Thakur Pherwani, Global Head – Sustainability, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories said that his team is in the process of deciding ESG goals which will pan out in various phases, such as short-term, medium-term, and long-term. “In the current context of the pandemic, digitalisation, stakeholder engagement is helping us build ESG strategies and framework for the organisation,” he said.
