India Inc's Fighting Hurdles For A Sustainable Future
In recent times, sustainability has become a major topic of discussion whether it is at international forums or domestic platforms. However, only a limited number of companies have aligned their climate commitments with the Paris Agreement's goals of 2030, according to a recent report by cKinetics.
The Paris Agreement has set clear goals for countries and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change. As per the agreement, the world needs to halve its emissions by 2030 and attain net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the disastrous impacts of climate change.
However, the report titled 'Decoding corporate climate pledges' stated that only 24 per cent of companies have committed to halving their emissions on or before 2030, indicating a significant deviation from the specified pathway.
Even when companies have set science-based targets initiative (SBTi)-validated goals, they still deviate from the standard pathway specified, it stated. For example, Tech Mahindra has set a goal to reduce absolute scopes one and two greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050.
For Indian corporations, there are several challenges to achieving net zero targets. Roshan Lal Tamak, ED & CEO, DCM Shriram– Sugar Business said, "It is the affordability of the technology because it is very costly. Though it is evolving, right now it is not cost-effective. Serious and responsible corporations are implementing the initiatives."
Notably, India at COP-26 in 2021 has announced an ambitious target for achieving net zero GHG-emission by 2070. The world's most populous nation agreed that global warming due to “Greenhouse gas” (GHG) emissions should be minimised.
Mukesh Kumar Tiwari, Chief General Manager, GAIL said, "It starts with finances which is one area. But we are in the business where we sell green energy basically. For us, the challenge lies particularly in the new technologies and regularities environment which are still in the nascent stage."
For India Inc, the challenge also lies in the storage part of green energy as they get it in the day or windy times however, stakeholders don't get the energy in the absence of these natural resources which India needs to solve, said experts at BW Businessworld's Sustainable World Conclave 2023.
Interestingly, Sudhir Mishra, Advocate and Founding Partner, Trust Legal said, "The biggest challenge that corporate India faces is poor storytellers. They don't talk about successes. The government has been able to talk about its success so far as any climate negotiations are concerned or any climate initiative has been taken."
The industry experts said that there is a need to speed up the alignment between internal and external stakeholders for India to move forward on the path of a sustainable future.
Talking about how to align stakeholders to achieve sustainability goals, Jyoti Malhotra, Managing Director, Volvo Car India said, "It is important to create a roadmap and need to build. The initial few years will be slow and then we will take off and then everyone will start seeing benefits. I think we need to be patient, stick to the roadmap and align everyone together to make them work on that."
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