Unveiling Path To Sustainable Business: Perspectives From Industry Leaders

We are living in an era of the business landscape where development and sustainability are becoming essential to mankind. There have to be no blurring lines when building sustainable services without compromising the future. 

BW initiated a sustainability panel to mark the significance of World Sustainability Day. Companies have started pledging towards a net zero target, but the question of the necessary steps towards change and transparency is uncovering with time. 

Debashis Majumder, Director, Intelligent Spend & Business Network, SAP Asia Pacific & Japan, highlighted crucial aspects of sustainability and its integration with technology during the discussion. He talked about the dual nature of sustainability ROI, focusing on social and company perspectives. He emphasised the four aspects of sustainability ROI: revenue, cost, employee, and risks/compliance. Consumer preferences for sustainable products were discussed, with brand trust identified as the paramount return on investment. He associated employee pride and retention with sustainable practices, exemplified by SAP. He laid out the significance of regulatory compliance and the potential financial impact, which underscored the need for sustainable practices. He outlined a three-step approach: record, report, and act, supported by SAP's three pillars for sustainability. He elaborated on a blockchain-based material traceability solution that ensures transparency in the supply chain. Sustainable procurement, supplier management, and transportation optimisation were deemed integral. He introduced SAP's target of achieving zero waste and zero emissions by 2030, prompting a call to action for a joint sustainability session to foster collaboration and transformation. 

Kalyan Kumar Bhattacherjee, Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President of Energy, at Jindal Stainless, highlighted the importance of sustainability as an enabling feature and emphasised financial, social, ecological, and operational abilities to sustain long-term sustainable goals. He even emphasised the role of business in performing on ESG metrics. “Business needs to be sustainable in terms of energy security, energy transition, operational efficiency, reduced energy consumption, waste recovery, and circularity”, he added.  Profitability and Sustainability can coexist. Businesses may boost cost savings by streamlining their processes and utilising energy-efficient technologies by implementing sustainable practices. “Sustainable Practices become essential for business gains, which can reduce operational costs by transitioning towards low carbon pathways, improving energy and process efficiency, reducing wastages using digitally enabled decision support systems instead of transaction reporting systems,” says Kalyan. 

The ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) framework helps measure risk and opportunities to support business investment plans. The Guardian claims that if present trends continue, Earth might lose more than a tenth of its plant and animal species by the end of the century. Nitin Singh, Vice President and Head of Internal Audit and Corporate Sustainability at Havells India, pointed out the drastic effect on the ecosystem due to the temperature rise just 50–60 years down the line.  He emphasised the need to take collaborative steps to make it a win-win situation. "If we don’t limit the harm we are doing to the environment, I think in about 70 years, there will be nothing left for the future generation”, he added. 

He focused on the need to measure intangible financial matrices such as reputation risk, brand risk, and customer-loyalty risk to drive ROI in sustainability.” Whatever things we are starting from a project standpoint; we should measure it. And if we do not measure the ROI, then I don’t think we will go anywhere”, he added further. He emphasised that stakeholders should take the necessary steps by adopting sustainability to bring hope to future generations. 

WEF (World Economic Forum) predicted the revenue opportunity to be about 4.3 trillion US dollars in Asian businesses by 2023 from activities like the expansion of renewable power, energy efficiency in buildings, and greater circularity in producing industries, which comprise about 43 per cent of the global market. 

Dharmender Tuteja, CFO of Dalmia Bharat & Dalmia Cement (Bharat), pointed out the need to link sustainability objectives to business goals/strategies to ensure the proper focus of top management and required resource allocation for sustainability initiatives. He informed us about India preparing to meet the Net Zero target by 2070, China committing to a timeline of 2060 and Dalmia Bharat has committed to be Net Zero by 2040. The Net Carbon emissions in the Global Cement Industry are about 600 kg/ton of cement production. In Indian Cement Industry, this figure is about 550 Kg while in Dalmia it is 460 kg. The Net Zero journey of Dalmia encompasses initiatives like moving to 100 per cent Renewable Energy, increasing usage of Recycled Waste as fuel, moving towards 100 per cent blended cement using additives like Slag and Fly ash which are waste of other industries, and increasing use of Electric Vehicles. All of these initiatives besides being sustainable are also economically viable. In Dalmia, the motto is Clean & Green is Profitable and Sustainable. He also informed that technology developments like Carbon Capture and its use need to evolve and become economically viable for their mass use.  

Summing up, he informed us that sustainable initiatives can easily be linked to business goals and justified on ROI metrics. By implementing sustainable practices, companies can move towards greener business/financial outcomes while adding value to the ecosystem.”