Financial Express & EVI gives away Green Business Leadership Awards

Dr Kalam felicitates the winners of FE-EVI Green Business Leadership Awards 2010-11 in New Delhi.

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | June 6, 2011

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam presented the FE-EVI Green Business Leadership Awards 2010-11 at a glittering award ceremony in the Capital today.  Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy Farooq Abdulalh was the guest of honour.

The award winners included  Binani Cement, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Larsen & Toubro in the category of high-energy intensive sectors and Tata Coffee, L'Oreal India and Hindustan Unilever in the category of low-energy intensive sectors.

Other nominated companies included Tata Chemicals and Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers amongst the high energy intensive sectors and ITC Ltd, Cognizant Technology Solutions and HSBC India  in the category of low-energy intensive sectors.

The winners, three each from  high-energy and low-energy intensive sectors, were shortlisted and selected from 591 companies, each with a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore, on the basis of the impact their initiatives have made in areas like climate change & environment, natural resources management, and governance for sustainability.

Weightage was also given to their performance in areas like energy use, water use, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and corporate governance.

The awards jury comprised eminent policymakers, industry leaders, academicians and thought leaders like Nitin Desai, former UN under secretary-general; Jyoti Parikh, executive director, IRADe; Prodipto Ghosh, former environment secretary; K Subramanya, CEO, Tata BP Solar India; Naresh Chandra, former cabinet secretary;  SK Barua, director, IIM-A; Vinod Kala, MD Emergent Ventures, and M K Venu, managing editor, The Financial Express. The event was organised jointly by The Financial Express and Emergent Ventures India, an integrated climate change and clean energy firm.

Three more companies – Autoboxx Automation Technologies, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) and HyCa Technologies – were also recognised for their innovative initiatives in the area of sustainability.

On this occasion, Pavita Puri, Group Brand Head, The Express Group, said, "The FE-EVI Green Business Leadership Awards recognise the real ground work done by corporate India towards sustainability. The awards are an affirmation that adopting clean tech and sustainability as a strategic objective leads to business growth."

MK Venu, Managing Editor, The Financial Express, added,   “It's important to celebrate the success of companies in embracing sustainability because it not only motivates the rest of their fraternity to join them, but is also an interesting national brand proposition for an emerging low-carbon India, which can give India Inc a competitive edge globally.”

The award ceremony was accompanied by the launch of the FE-EVI Green Business Survey 2010-11 titled Indian Inc: Sustainability Matters.

Ashutosh Pandey, CEO, Advisory Business, Emergent Ventures India, said, “The survey clearly shows that corporate India could achieve business growth while significantly reducing impact on the environment and natural resources. Time has come when companies adopt sustainability as a core business issue.”

Going forward, the survey recommends that managing climate change risks and gaining from newer opportunities created due to mitigation efforts should become core to business planning.  Natural resources management should include treating natural resources risk as part of the enterprise risk management structure and  elevate natural resources management as a governance priority for the Board. Effective management of stakeholders, disclosures, CSR and sustainability related governance requires companies to look at all these issues in a holistic manner.

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