Corporates, citizens do their bit
World Environment Day
To mark the World Environment Day observed on Saturday, several corporates and other organisations in the City have lined up a range of green initiatives, which were in full bloom on Friday. But there were also projects close to the concept that were launched long ago.
The City-based ThoughtWorks has launched an initiative to plant 1,000 saplings over the next one year to help restore Bangalore’s greenery. This project is being carried out as part of “ThoughtWorks’ Social Impact Program”, headed by Rohit Bansal.
Praveen M, a developer at ThoughtWorks, is driving this initiative and over the next 12 months ThoughtWorks will provide all the necessary logistical support such as buying saplings, tree-guards, digging tools, etc. The intention is to partner with resident associations and NGOs to ensure that once the saplings are planted, they will be nurtured on a regular basis.
On the motivation behind this effort, Rohit said: “We want to demonstrate how easy it is to plant a tree in the hope that every resident will commit to growing at least two trees around his or her home, and thus participate in rebuilding a green Bangalore. We want to reach a state where for every tree chopped down in the name of development, citizens plant at least 10 trees.”
Another corporate, Ness Technologies will run various sustainable campaigns throughout June to reduce carbon footprints.
Under its electricity campaign, all the common area lights at Ness will be switched off daily for the whole year to conserve electricity. This campaign will help save a total of 6963 units per month.
Under its Inter Department Newspaper Collection & Paper Bag Making Contest, its employees will be encouraged to collect newspapers from their homes. The team/department that collects the most newspapers will be declared the winner. The newspapers collected will be given to an NGO to make paper bags and which will be distributed to Nessians.
Tesco HSC, another private company, has taken a unique initiative of installing the first of its kind eco-friendly UPS in India. Sandeep Dhar, CEO, Tesco HSC said: “The challenge of climate change can only be faced by collective action. We want to cut our own carbon footprint and help suppliers and customers do the same.”
Tesco’s initiative is expected to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by approximately 30 tonnes per annum and will save approximately 55339/units of energy per annum.
The company has also replaced all 70 watt light fixtures ones with a capacity of 20 watt for external lighting. This alone is expected to save about 18000 units of energy.
“For lighting fixtures in the internal common areas, we have replaced all 11 watt light fixtures to five watt fixtures, totalling to an energy saving of 26,000 units. This will help lessen our carbon burden by 19 tonnes,” he said.
Wipro has arranged a series of guest lectures for employees, an environment awareness campaign in conjunction with Greenpeace, a cycle-to-work campaign and free vehicle emission checks for this World Environment Day.
In other developments of the day, nearly 115 people took part in a walkathon and planted saplings at a programme organised by Dr Malathi Manipal Hospital.
DH News Service
