Sustainability gets supporters from all sectors

 Unless we conserve energy and resources along with attempts to reduce global warming, we are calling for a disaster, said M Veerappa Moily, minister of power and corporate affairs at The Energy and Resources Institute’s 11th Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture on Wednesday.

Moily stressed on radical solutions for a sustainable future. “People are now realising this issue as we have graduated from advocacy to implementation of methods to sustain our environment. We need to follow the US’ greenhouse emission solutions. Sustainability is a national character that cannot be neglected. We need to cherish it,” he said.

Moily said the ministry is working towards finalising a sustainable formula for corporate houses and their social role.

He said exploiting renewable energy is needed due to limited sources of fossil fuel. “We need to encourage the shift of dependence on energy through renewable sources like wind, biomass, geo-thermal and solar to meet power shortage,” added Moily.
Several TERI researchers were facilitated for being in the organisation for 20 years and acting as role models.

Dr Bhaskar Chatterjee, CEO of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, announced that TERI and the institute are in the process of finalising a partnership to work on a sustainability report of the country, with special focus on corporate social responsibility.
“Enabling responsible businesses to ensure a sustainable future is the need of the hour. We need to broaden our corporate objectives beyond the economic to include the social and the environment,” he said.

He said India needs to play a greater role in educating the world about sustainable businesses as “the world’s eyes are on the country”.

“The complexities of development are interlinked and the challenge of attaining sustainability is so diverse that we have to broad base our approach towards a better change driven by knowledge,” said TERI director general R K Pachauri.