Environment sustainability is the emerging keyword in the corporate sector. Surprising as that may seem, it is not so really. Businesses have come to realise that investing in environmental sustainability makes for sound business sense!
As Amit Deep Singh, environment director, Tetra Pak India says, it is also about making the business sustainable by nature. Tetra Pak is in partnership with WWF in a Climate Savers Programme where by 2010 the climate savers (a group of companies) will collectively cut carbon emissions by 10 million tonnes annually, and that is “equivalent to taking out two million cars off the road.”
Amit says how the company makes sure that the product can be traced back to the paper mills and forest so that “we know that these forests have to be certified. Using good forest governance, we make sure that one tree removed is replaced by many more.”
Tetra Pak recycling
The fact that the product does not need refrigeration means energy is saved, that the material is recycled into a roofing material that is termite proof and education in ten cities to educate children on global warming are some of the company’s bit to conservation.
“The fibre used in the packaging is much in demand in paper mills. So once that is separated the rest is heat treated and pressed into a strong material. Around 6.8 million packs were collected in 2006 in Mumbai alone. Collection and recycling is on at Hyderabad, Chennai and Coimbatore,” says Amit.
Cool carpet
Interface FLOR which is into manufacturing carpet tiles has come up with a ‘Cool Carpet’ scheme where customers can buy products that are climate neutral. This means that any greenhouse gases emitted during the lifecycle are offset or balanced. This covers raw material acquisition, manufacturing, transport, use and maintenance and disposal and recycling, says Raj Menon, country manager, while adding that the company has saved $336 million in the process so far.
For instance the overprinting process required lots of water. But now we have changed to a different technology that requires less water, says Kartika Rajaram, marketing manager. “To reduce raw material used we recycle wastage like yarn and have a reentry process for old carpets. Even in design there is lots of processes so we used the concept of less is more through hi-end technology. Using thermoplastic technology we separated the top and bottom of the old carpet. the top goes to the landfill and the bottom as backing used for new carpets.”
The main source for the carpet is nylon, which is a fossil fuel product. But efforts are on to use a hybrid yarn that mixes corn yarn with the PLA.
The company has set in 1994 a Mission Zero to be accomplished by 2020 where as a company it has no impact on environment. “We aim to be a sustainable company by then,” adds Raj.
“Our Cool Carpet certification where a third party will calculate the carbon emission of the carpet tells our clients that they have a product that is clean and green. The money from the certification is invested by Interface in projects across the world. For instance in Karnataka we have invested in the wind turbine project in Chitradurga,” he says.
Even the employees’ contribution is calculated and they are made to pay for their carbon footprint to 50 percent while the company bears the rest.
On behalf of its clients, Interface has been sponsoring the Aishwarya lamp (solar energy based lamp) in two villages in MP and AP. The company has been featured in the Dow Jones sustainability list for 2004. The Globescan report, 2006 placed Interface as the most sustainable company, notes Kartika.
Protecting the rainforests
Lands being bought to be protected? Especially in the rainforest region? That is what BCIL (Bioconserve India Limited) has done with its concern about the vanishing tropical forests. In adopting a rainforest patch in Coorg and dedicating to work in its fragile habitats, the Coorg Consortium for Conservative hopes to do its bit for the Western Ghats. In its Little Acre are 13,000 full grown trees that absorb carbon dioxide thrown out by 234 kilometres of journeying by a single car in a year, and pumps eight million litres of water every day into the atmosphere. Investing in protecting the forests, creatively using the water and biomass resources, renewable energy for all amenities at its campus that is open to its members, education for farmers on sustainable practices, wildlife ecotour packages, etc. BCIL looks for around 40 interested who want to to invest in its 35 hectare expanse.
That apart, in its construction activities based on zero energy requirements, as C Hariharan, BCIL, would say, “This is not about going green as much as shifting to the demands of tomorrow. It is only sustainable business that will thrive.”
Communicating Green
Havas is the first Global Communications Group to become carbon neutral in six of its key markets, the first step in what it calls the group's commitment to greener working practices. Havas has instigated a program of carbon emissions reduction. It has been assessed and approved as a holder of the ZeroCO2® certification of carbon neutrality after having calculated and offset its main carbon emissions in 2006, including electricity and gas consumption, paper usage and business travel.
Havas’ carbon emissions in France, UK, Spain, US, Mexico and India amounted to the equivalent of 32 382 metric tonnes of CO2 in 2006, and it has started a focused internal process to reduce this by 20 per cent by 2009. This will primarily affect paper usage, transport and other key sources of carbon emissions. This reduction program will be supported by an internal awareness campaign and training programs to help employees reduce their impact on the environment.
The decision is seen as a significant step in portraying the group’s corporate social responsibility and fighting the climate change. The executive committee of Havas says, “Our undertaking is differentiated from that of other initiatives in the market because not only will Havas be directly contributing to reducing CO2 emissions, but we also hope that our programme to promote this shift towards a more responsible and environmentally friendly culture will benefit our clients, shareholders and teams.”
Investing in protecting standing forests and their bio-diversity, and creating new forest ecosystems through three projects located in Latin America, Asia and Africa respectively are part of the carbon offset programme.
The IT bit
Even small steps can mean a big change. IBM plans to consolidate many of its servers into 30 system mainframes operating on Linux in a move seen to cut energy consumption by 80 percent! The energy saved can power a small town, according to a press release. It will amount to $250 millions saved in five years.
Sharp India that launched its latest range of Aquos LCD Televisions says that the new series employs halogen materials which can be recycled, and sweet corns instead of petroleum-based materials in the crutch base. Hence, users contribute to environmental protection while enjoying the high-definition performance.
Intex Technologies (I) Ltd, amongst the fastest growing company in IT hardware and electronics, has taken a small but important step in generation of green energy by investing in 2 wind mills of 600 KW each at Tenkasi, Tamilnadu. This has been done in an alliance with VESTAS RRB, Indian arm of the world's largest manufacturer of wind turbines-VESTAS, who has supplied, installed and commissioned the wind mills.
Turn the lights on!
According to International Energy Agency, lighting is responsible for 19 percent of world electricity consumption. Naturally, energy efficient lighting technology offers significant savings in energy and carbon emissions. It could mean up to 296 million tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided and 779 barrels of oil saved every year!
Despite the advances in lighting, up to 75 per cent of the world’s lights utilise older, less energy efficient technology dating as far back as the 1950s. According to industry sources, the incandescent bulb uses up to 95 percent of the energy to generate heat and only remaining 5 percent to produce light. CFLs use only 20 percent of the energy used by an ordinary light bulb to give equivalent amount of light. In India, 18,000 megawatt power annually is used for lighting purposes alone.
The power crisis in the country is reflected in the MAIT-Emerson Network Power (India) study on Network Power Downtime, which reveals that India Inc. could be losing over Rs. 22,000 crores in year 2003, in direct losses, due to poor power quality and operating environment related downtime – estimated to be around 2.2 per cent of the gross output of the total industrial and service sectors.
“Our goal is to create an ecosystem comprising industry bodies, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and education institutes to break down the barriers towards adoption of energy efficient lighting. In a first of sorts in the lighting industry in the country, Philips had recently pledged more than 80 per cent of its marketing budget towards awareness building initiatives like ‘Bijli Bachao’ campaign. This was a two month long radio FM based initiative, covering some of the major cities of the country, to create awareness about energy saving products and included giving away simple energy saving tips. Other educational activities like creating awareness amongst school children, the future citizens, are also being rolled out in various states. We are also in process of finalising some energy conservation projects with the Government of India,” says Mathew Job, marketing director, lighting division, Philips Electronics India Ltd.
Globally, Philips features amongst the top green companies, he notes. It has a policy of embedding sustainability into its organisation and culture, product design, manufacturing processes and business strategy. Specific sustainability issues addressed include the energy efficiency of buildings, with a goal of zero net energy buildings, energy efficiency and chemical content of products, recycling schemes and lifecycle analysis.
Philips was one of the companies to realise the issue of energy efficiency and has been constantly creating efficient energy solutions ever since. Philips invented the energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulb back in 1980. This new generation bulbs of this type last an average of six years and each one provides a saving of 80 per cent in energy consumed. That’s a saving of EUR 12 and 34 kilos of CO2 per lamp per year.
Some other solutions provided by Philips are Compact fluorescents, Compact halogen bulbs, LED technology, etc. From office lighting to intelligent LED lighting, from energy-saving TVs to lamps with decorator appeal and the ability to halve energy consumption.
CDM in lighting
OSRAM has become world's first lighting manufacturer to receive approval from the United Nations for a "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) for reducing CO2 emissions. This sustainable methodology based on the Kyoto Protocol will enable many millions of incandescent light bulbs to be directly replaced by energy-saving lamps over the next few years in developing and emerging countries mainly in Africa and Asia.
To implement its approved method, OSRAM will enter into local cooperation agreements, for example with power supply companies or energy agencies, says a press release. The plan is for the costs for the new energy-saving lamps to be borne by OSRAM and its partners. This is because the target group comprises households that could not normally otherwise afford to buy energy-saving lamps.
The tools for refinancing this investment are the CO2 certificates generated from the CDM project. In the implementation projects currently planned by OSRAM the replacements are intended to be at zero cost. There is even a financial benefit for the new users of energy-saving lamps in the form of savings in electricity consumption of up to 80 percent.
Over its life of up to 15 years, an OSRAM Longlife energy-saving lamp will save about one megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity and around half a tonne of CO2 emissions, the company spokesperson says. OSRAM’s energy-saving halogen lamps will produce brilliant light typical of halogen lamps but can be dimmed without restriction. They last twice as long as incandescent lamps and achieve energy savings of 30 per cent.
There is also enormous potential for energy savings in the commercial and industrial sectors, for example with regard to fluorescent lamps. Simply replacing conventional fluorescent lamps with intelligent energy-saving systems could save around 320 million MWh and 160 million tonnes of CO2 emissions worldwide each year.
So when the corporate world is joining the greening effort, isn’t it time you and I did our bit? Watch this space in the coming weeks to know what you can do, in small ways that have big impact on our planet.
(This is by no means a comprehensive list of companies with a green conscience.)
