Putting Sustainability Into Practice

With two Indian automotive companies operationalising vehicle recycling units for the first time in FY21, the industry has indeed taken an important stride towards increasing its resource consumption efficiency. The increased end-of-life value of automotives through collaborative projects is a welcome step forward for the greater usage of scrap metal in India.  

Mahindra and Mahindra: CERO, a joint venture between Mahindra Accelo (a subsidiary of M&M) and MSTC (GoI enterprise under the Ministry of Steel), is India's maiden organised auto shredding venture that started operations in Greater Noida in FY21 and has since expanded to five different locations in India. The JV recycles vehicles as well as facilitates the clean and efficient disposal of vehicles. It handles the entire value chain from collection of the vehicle until its official deregistration at the RTO. CERO means zero in Spanish, signifying zero pollution, zero wastage and zero dependence on import of metal scraps.  

Maruti Suzuki: In the same year, Maruti Suzuki also collaborated with the Toyota Tsusho Group to set up a vehicle dismantling and recycling facility in India. The two companies have floated a separate company for this purpose called Maruti Suzuki Toyotsu India (MSTI). This became operational in 2021 with an initial capacity of scrapping 24,000 vehicles per annum. Maruti Suzuki has adopted systems to meet the norms for reusability, recyclability and recoverability as per European Union’s End of Life Vehicle directive for export markets as well as Indian markets, ahead of India’s End of Life Vehicles (ELV) regulations.  

Filling the climate skills gap 
India is the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the US, and the Climate Action Tracker rates India’s climate targets and policies as ‘highly insufficient’ with regard to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree Celsius temperature limit. For India to improve its rating, a major onus lies on companies operating in India to recruit a workforce technically skilled in climate action, who can drive the necessary technological shifts, and structure financing mechanisms to support the transition that every company will need to make to achieve net zero emissions.

Yet, approximately 1,20,000 people globally, and less than 5,000 people in India, are formally trained to adequately cater to the $23 trillion global climate industry opportunities expected until 2030. The IFC predicted that India and Bangladesh together are expected to attract $2.5 trillion worth of opportunities related to climate-resilient infrastructure. In India alone, there is a potential to create three million renewable energy jobs by 2030. To fill this crucial skills gap in the industry, there is a recent push towards establishing climate education programmes in India.

Currently, IISc Bengaluru offers M.Tech. and Ph.D. programmes in Climate Sciences besides conducting research at its Divecha Centre for Climate Change. TERI, in New Delhi, offers a Master’s degree in Climate Science and Policy. The Anant Fellowship for Climate Action is a year-long immersion for practitioners. IIT Mumbai runs an interdisciplinary programme in Climate Studies only at the doctoral level. IIT Hyderabad offers a few courses and electives related to climate change. The Bachelor of Technology specialising in Climate Technologies at Anant National University is the only undergraduate degree offered in India that focuses on climate.