India CSR News Network
MUMBAI: Reinforcing its commitment towards a greener environment, Palava, Lodha Group’s Greenfield integrated smart city, has partnered with bigbasket to deliver 8000 saplings across Mumbai. This activity has been planned for the month of March as part of Palava’s ‘Go Green’ initiative where one sapling will be delivered along with every order placed with Big Basket.
The focus of this activity is to revive the green belt of the city in wake of increasing air pollution that is affecting the liveability of Mumbai and the health of millions. This drive aims to combat the reduction of green cover and enhance the air quality for Mumbaikars.
Mumbai was ranked as one of the least sustainable cities amongst top 50 cities in the world (a report by Arcadis) reiterating on the city lifestyle that is detrimental to the environment. In lieu of this, many corporates have been encouraging citizens to practice a more environment friendly lifestyle by adopting carpooling, waste management etc. While Palava is designed for environmental sustainability, its citizens are taking small steps to propagate this ideology. Today Palava is home to over 20,000 trees, of which 5,000 trees was planted by its citizens during the Go Green initiative last year.
Commenting on this initiative, Shaishav Dharia, Regional CEO, Palava said, “Palava’s blueprint was designed to minimize the implications of environmental concerns which has resulted in achieving healthy air quality standards. Palava, today, has an AQI between 50 -70 which is at least 3 times better than top Indian cities. We plan to extend the same efforts for whole Mumbai as the need of the hour is to overcome poor ecological footprint which in turn will help us in achieving our ultimate aim as a corporate entity to build a better life for all.”
Applauding Palava for this remarkable move, Ashutosh Taparia, Regional Business Head of Mumbai from bigbasket said, “In creating a profitable entity, an enterprise has to do it both socially and monetarily. It is of paramount importance that a corporate firm doesn’t compromise on the constitution of a city and rather adds to it. Being a socially & environmentally responsible company, we at bigbasket have been diligently working to deliver nothing, but the best to customers in a sustainable way. And our strong supply-chain network has been a core pillar in delivering this vision. This strength has aided us in supporting Palava to distribute over 8000 saplings across the city. We are pleased to associate with the Palava management who complement our vision of environmental sustainability and support their Go Green initiative as it is a philosophy that we as a company endorse strongly.”
As part of their Go Green initiative, Palava is also distributing saplings to thousands of students in several schools across Thane and Navi Mumbai. The city aims to spread the message of environmental conservation and sustainability at a young age to the citizens of tomorrow. Palava not only plans to further add 2.5 lac trees within the city in the future, but is also committed to significant investments on several sustainability initiatives like waste water treatment and usage, solar energy generation, waste management and other initiatives which, while expensive, will support Palava in its vision of becoming one of the top 50 most liveable cities in the world by 2025.