New Delhi: Shri Rao Inderjit Singh, Union Minister of State (IC), Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, Ministry of Planning, and MoS, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Govt. of India, inaugurated the National Conference on Responsible Business Conduct’ and Exhibition on ‘Embracing ESG in India’ organised by the School of Business Environment of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) in New Delhi, today.
The inaugural session was graced by eminent guests such as Dr. Manoj Govil, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Govt. of India, Shombi Sharp, United Nation Resident Coordinator to India, Praveen Kumar, DG & CEO , IICA, Dr Garima Dadhich, Associate Professor and Head of School of Business Enironment, IICA, Ms. Cynthia McCaffery, UNICEF Country Representative India, Dr. Tina Kuriakose, Director, International Justice Mission, Pradeep Narayan, Director, Partners in Change, Dr. Nidhi Pundhir, Vice President, Global CSR, HCLTech& Director, HCL Foundation, and Ram Chauhan, Director, bvokal Technologies Pvt Ltd.
During his inaugural address, Shri Singh spoke about the importance of responsible business conduct in India and urged the corporate sector to increase the focus on environmental protection related strategic CSR projects within the purview of the Schedule VII of the Companies Act 2013 as pressing issues of climate change, rise in temperature, eco-degradation, water scarcity, decreasing water levels etc. are important to address to survive on planet earth and to secure a sustainable life to our future generations.
On the occasion, Rao Inderjit Singh also released the Book “Demystifying ESG” authored by Prof. Garima Dadhich and Dr. Ravi Raj Atrey.
Representing the United Nations, Shombi Sharp, highlighted that realising SDGs are important both for the Corporates and Society and emphasised that India is playing a key role in making SDGs Agenda 2030 a Global Reality.
During his address on the occasion, Manoj Govil, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, recognised that while there is need to increase the ‘economic-pie’, equally crucial is responsible business conduct.
During his address, Praveen Kumar, DG &CEO , IICA, who had also welcomed the guests to the conference earlier, emphasised the need for immediate action on ESG by businesses and role of IICA in catering those needs and formally formally welcomed all the dignitaries and participants to the conference.
The pivotal modern-age areas of sustainability were addressed under the three High-Level Panels during the first day. The first high-level panel was ‘Responsible Governance from Rights to Duties: Dialogues with Impact Leaders’ and eminent speakers like Praveen Kumar, Saurabh Garg, Ms. Anita Shah Akella, Ms. Naina Lal Kidwai, Ms. Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Bharat Wakhlu, and ParvatheesamKanchinadham deliberated in this session.
The panel on ‘Measuring the Environmental Footprints of Business under Indian Regulatory Mechanism’ was comprised of speakers like Prof. Tata Raghu, Dr. Rajat Kumar, Arupendra Nath Mullick, Dr. Akhil Prasad, and Dr. Divya Datt.
Another panel on ‘Responsible Procurement: Supply Chain Challenges’ witnessed the deliberations from the Ms. Prajkta L. Verma, Dr. Radha Mohan Gupta, Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan, Shubha Sekhar, Nusrat Khan, and Bhaskar Venugopal.
Sessions were overwhelmed with the participants interaction with the panellist through Q&A. Five more such High-Level Panels based on CSR, SDGs, Sustainable Finance, ESG, Biodiversity and Business and Human Rights will take place on day-2 of the conference.
