By Rusen Kumar
Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility (CSR) in India is a shared commitment for our shared future. As a business, we must remain committed to our mission of creating products and services that enrich the lives of our customers and stakeholders. Every business needs to be equally committed to doing so in a manner that doesn’t deplete the earth’s resources. Such commitment acknowledges business responsibility for its entire value chain—which extends across its facilities and through the entire life cycle of its products.
Such commitment drives responsible business strategy—whether innovating solutions to environmental challenges or creating opportunities for minority-owned businesses and institutions that have been historically disadvantaged.
Indian businesses are striving to enable the type of world collectively and shared we want to live in. Leading corporate houses in India are taking steps to help others reduce their footprint, as well as protect communities that often disproportionately bear the costs of environmental harm.
Only by engaging with like-minded organizations can we meet our ambitious goals and realize the changes our world needs – shared responsibility. shared future. Shared goals.
This is the need of the hour that we must learn from the expertise of others, including failure and disadvantages. We seek out those who inspire us, which we collectively support in their work at the intersection of climate change and education.
Let’s collaborate to advance our environmental initiatives, like our work to promote circular supply chains and circularity.
By sharing our strategy and approach, we need to have an aim to maximize the impact of our collective efforts while empowering others and also ourselves.
Every Indian CEO must resoundingly reinforce its organization’s commitment to transition to a carbon-neutral economy and create inclusive opportunities.
Businesses must have remained committed to utilizing their resources as an organization to combat climate change. A strong commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 is both ambitious and necessary for businesses.
Keep in mind, such effort requires innovations at scale—like designing and implementing new technologies, mobilizing financing structures, and rapidly deploying renewable energy. Everything that we do needs to be driven by science and the urgency to tackle climate change.
Every Indian business should have a sustainability target to achieve carbon neutrality for the entire carbon footprint by 2030, and also must have a science-based emissions reduction target and ultimately keep creating products with net-zero carbon impact by 2030.
Every business must realise that climate change is one of the greatest threats of our time. The phenomena are putting at risk people and animals’ access to clean air, adequate food, safe drinking water, and sanitation.
Our mother earth cannot wait for an inclusive, carbon-neutral economy. So, every business has a responsibility to create a meaningful plan to reduce their emissions.
Let’s realise that what is good for the ecology is also good business practice. That’s why let’s start working in parallel with clear emissions reduction efforts, and at the same time also scale up investments in carbon removal projects, including nature-based solutions that protect and restore ecosystems around the world.
Let’s avoid direct greenhouse gas emissions from our facilities and in our all-supply chain through process innovation, emissions abatement, and the use of non-fossil-based low-carbon fuels.
Nature provides some of the best tools to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Nature has the solution for every problem. Forests, wetlands, and grasslands draw carbon from the atmosphere and store it away in their soils, roots, and branches. Let’s realise nature is the founder of human wealth.
Let’s increase energy efficiency at our manufacturing facilities and in the supply chain by finding opportunities, such as retrofitting, to reduce energy use.
Let’s design products and manufacturing processes that are less carbon-intensive through thoughtful material selection, increased material efficiency, and greater product energy efficiency.
Let’s have a business mission to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. All Indian businesses meticulously model their emissions from the entire value chain, including both corporate operations and full product life cycle.
Reducing energy use is an essential business process. Let’s make it practical in business. Let’s draw less energy from electrical grids. Help to reduce local air pollution and improve air quality for nearby communities.
Undoubtedly, renewable energy is poised to replace fossil fuels as the future of electricity. Its adoption means healthier air, stronger local economies, and lower carbon emissions.Â
Kindly try to minimize overall waste generated and eliminate waste sent to landfills from manufacturing facilities as well as business operations.
Water is a vital resource for everyone. Let’s reduce current water use, leverage alternative and recycle sources of water, and manage discharge responsibly.
Every Indian business must ensure their employees remain passionate about the environment and excited about the 2030 SDGs commitment. Businesses must have a plan to keep empowering ESG.
Let’s have a responsibility to have a healthy relationship with all of the resources that make our work possible. Our efforts to responsibly source materials, minimize water use, and eliminate waste is directly connected to our collective future.
Knowledge is a key driver for humans and businesses. Every Indian business must share their experience and best practices over CSR and Sustainability practices.
(Rusen Kumar, founder of India CSR, popularly known as CSR informer of India. He writes on CSR, Sustainability and Corporate Governance.)
