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Environment the most important engine of economic growth, among several drivers: Mr Ashok Lavasa
Apr 09, 2018

Speaking at a session on Climate Change: Is Business Doing Enough?, Mr Nitin Desai, Member, Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change stressed that the pressures for sustainability are going to increase for India as a nation and for industry as well due to the growing concern and a sense of alarm in scientific community. He was participating at the CII

Annual Session 2018: Building a Better India Together: Responsible Inclusive & Ahead   in New Delhi today.

He said that though India is reasonably on track on Paris commitments, it is required for industry mainly large corporations to take a long term view of investment, dramatic changes in climate change and independent technological strength.

 Mr Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner of India and Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, highlighted that though Government policies do have a role to play, business community has enough competence and imagination to achieve the vision and the targets for sustainability. It is required for industry to understand the new demand and in which manner it is viable for the industry to meet those requirements.

Among the several drivers, environment would the most important engine of economic growth. He informed India achieved 20,000 Mw solar power capacity in current fiscal as compared to only 2500 mw in 2014.

 Mr Jamshed N Godrej, Past President, CII and Chairman & Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company Limited stated that CII is deeply involved in the areas of climate change, energy efficiency and sustainable development through its three Centres of Excellence – Green Business Centre, Hyderabad, ITC Centre for Sustainability in Delhi and the recently started Triveni Water Institute. He emphasised that business can contribute significantly in the various flagship programmes. He however stated that Research and development needs attention and for forests a lot has to be done.

While emphasising on the huge opportunity for industry, he mentioned that one big challenge is not only to convince large companies to accept sustainable solutions but also to bring out systemic changes by including small & medium enterprises and supply chains.

A dossier highlighting the achievements of IGBC was released - India achieving 5 Billion sq ft Green Building footprint with CII-IGBC spearheading green building movement in India since 2001. CII also launched the CII Electric Vehicles Mission.

 Mr Yuri Afanasiev, The UN Resident Coordinator and Resident Representative in India, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) emphasised on how business can integrate sustainability in its business model. The energy demand for India would double in next 10 years with increasing urbanisation and standards of living. UN is looking at India with its unique capabilities, liberal ecosystem, largest democracy and size of the market. Together with industry we are keen to explore opportunity of exporting theses viable business models.

 Dr Prem C Jain, Chairman, CII Indian Green Building Council, informed that understanding the imperative to have a specific rating system for each of the different building, IGBC has launched over 20 fully indigenised green building rating systems for commercial, residential, cities, townships, factories, schools, healthcare, data centres, metro stations, railway stations and several others. The ratings incorporate National Standards and Codes. He further mentioned that India has the second largest green building footprint in the world after USA and IGBC aspires to facilitate 10 billion square feet of green building footprint by 2022 to become the global leader. He asked the industry to support the programme and fulfil the mission of sustainable India.

Mr Manoj Kohli, Executive Chairman, SB Energy (SoftBank Group) while highlighting the components for building a sustainable E-moblity Eco system, mentioned that E mobility would not only reduce the pollution levels but would also help in energy security which would significantly reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and thus import bill, given India’s energy import bill of around $150 billion. He further said that affordability was an issue earlier, now the issue is how rapidly we can roll out.

9 April 2018

New Delhi

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