realme pledges commitment to CSR and sustainability; to achieve Double Zero targets by 2025
New Delhi (India CSR): realme has committed to reducing the carbon emissions of its GT series smartphone by 50% in five years via minimizing their full life-cycle carbon prints. It believed in giving back to society and working towards a sustainable environment and has undertaken a few CSR initiatives and partnerships in this direction. Madhav Sheth, CEO realme India, VP, realme and President, realme International Business Group spoke to India CSR’s Rusen Kumar about his company’s CSR and sustainability journey. Excerpts:
Why is realme India partnering with NGO?
Environmental protection has become one of the top priorities for realme and this year realme is going big on sustainability. We are coming up with many initiatives to strengthen our commitments to bringing sustainable design aspects to consumers around the world. At the same time, one of our attempts is to reduce carbon emissions for which we have started an E-Waste recycling project covering 30 cities in India to realize the recycling and reuse of obsolete products. To flourish this initiative, we will be partnering with an NGO to promote recycling with E-waste to realize the promise of ’Leap-to-Greener’ and come up with more environment-friendly initiatives with them to build a greater and greener world.
How important are sustainability and eco-friendly initiatives to realme?
realme being a responsible brand understands the importance of having a healthy environment and a better lifestyle for the people in the society. We always aim to go beyond expectations and deliver something greater to our users. As I mentioned earlier, our major focus area will be to bring and promote sustainable trends in product design and heritage. Additionally, we have also taken a step towards bringing in the perfect amalgamation of design and sustainability with the realme GT 2 Pro, which features the industry’s first bio-based polymer Paper Tech Master Design inspired by “The Future in Paper.” In today’s business environment, businesses must participate in environmental protection, particularly how to incorporate environmental protection into business operations so that social responsibility and business operations are well balanced and can walk hand in hand. As a result, we’ve established a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in our business operations.
We have believed in giving back to society and working towards a sustainable environment and have undertaken a few CSR initiatives and partnerships in this direction to promote sustainability as we are entering the fourth year. Like, we have our internal plan in place for the production of green products, a carbon-neutral strategy to achieve our goal of becoming a socially responsible enterprise.
How important is Going Green for the smartphone industry?
I would say, it’s not only important but a necessity for every brand. Even if we merely analyze the societal changes that this move will bring, it is significant. In its first year of use, a brand-new smartphone emits an average of 85 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Manufacturing operations, such as the extraction of raw materials and shipping, account for 95% of this. After all, the smartphone is the most popular gadget, with over 4.5 billion in current use. In 2022, a base of 4.5 billion smartphones is expected to produce 146 million tonnes of CO2 or equivalent emissions (CO2e). While this represents less than half of the 34 gigatons of CO2e emitted globally in 2021, emissions can be cut even further. As a result, making smartphones more sustainable & going green is a priority.
Please share details about realme’s ‘Double Zero’ targets?
In the years ahead, reducing carbon emissions will be a top priority for realme. We will call on more people who are concerned about environmental protection to participate in carbon reduction and sustainable development initiatives along with over 100 million realme users globally on additional environmental projects and want to be a socially responsible company that contributes to a better world.
By 2025, realme seeks to accomplish “Double Zero” goals, which include net-zero carbon emissions in corporate operations and zero waste to landfills. To progress towards our ‘Double Zero’ target, we will launch our first premium flagship smartphone with sustainable material back cover—GT 2 Pro on April 7th. For being an environmentally and socially responsible product life cycle, the realme GT 2 series has earned TCO Certified certification and also includes certification of packaging and has become the world’s first TCO certified smartphone brand. The realme GT 2 Pro is also the first smartphone in the world to use a biopolymer for the entire back panel, lowering carbon emissions by 35.5 percent during production. When compared to pure petroleum-based materials, this biopolymer emits 2kg less carbon per kilogramme produced. Plastic has also decreased in the phone’s packaging from 21.7 percent to a minuscule 0.3 percent, resulting in an essentially non-existent amount of plastic.
What are realme’s plans for promoting sustainability?
I must say, realme has come a long way, breaking numerous industry records in its journey of over 3 years. Starting this year, one of realme’s key values will be sustainability. We have several plans in place to promote and raise awareness of sustainability.
Firstly, realme commits to reducing our GT series smartphone’s carbon emissions by 50% in five years by reducing complete life-cycle carbon footprints. We will bring more sustainable and eco-friendly designs for our users with advanced technology. Apart from eco-friendly design collections, we take a big step toward a better world with a ‘Double Zero’ goal—net-zero carbons emissions in corporate operation and zero waste to landfills by 2025.
As an attempt to reduce carbon emissions, we will partner with NGOs to put up an E-waste bin to collect obsolete technology products across 30 cities in India to achieve effective e-waste disposal. Following the installation of those e-waste bins, we will invite our fans and encourage them to participate in the e-waste recycling initiative through environmental recycling days, environmental protection knowledge workshops, and other activities. We believe all these initiatives will help our 4 million Indian community members to participate in our environmentally friendly programme and help create a greater, greener world with us.
About the Author
Rusen Kumar is the editor at India CSR.
(India CSR)
CopyRight@IndiaCSR
