Corporates go for green initiatives
| Hindu Business Line | Date : 04-06-2009 |
Edition : Bangalore |Page: 17 | Source : Bureau
Corporates go for green initiatives
Our Bureau
Banglaore, June 3
Green is the way to go. At least that’s what many corporate think.
With efforts geared towards environmentally friendly practices globally, corporate also realize that green measures will add up where they really matter: bottom line. Besides, green efforts generate a lot of goodwill for them.
The World Environment Foundation, UK, and World Council for Corporate Governance (WCGC), UK are organizing a human chain in Bangalore on June 5. The day will also see the lunch of PROACTIVATE, an initiative to combat climate change.
PROACTIVATE is an 11-point model aimed at boosting economy, alleviating poverty and regenerating the planet by pricing natural capital and factoring it in financial statements.
Climate change is an opportunity the “knocks our door after million years and has a great transformational and potential by sparking business innovation, “ Dr Madhav Mehra President , WCGC, said. “PROACTIVATE is a transformational model inspired by the possibilities of change in the way we live and work through business innovation.”
ECO INITIATIVES
According to Ms Kathleen Kissel of Kenexa, a HR consulting firm, some of the measures that corporate undertake are reducing waste and paper use; using recycled materials for products, and less packaging; reducing energy use with alternative fuel vehicles; building energy efficiency and e-commerce solutions; reducing use of raw materials; investing in clean technology; using carbon offsets; using alternative energy sources and reducing toxic emissions.
Kanexa has made a start in the direction at its office in Vishakhapatnam, where a facility has been built to be environmental friendly , “We are recycling paper, eliminating stryofoam and have given all employees a new ceramic cup to use at work, “said Ms Kissel.
Telecom major Nokia has rolled out its environment initiatives based on life cycle thinking. Some of them include take-back and recycling initiative of its mobile handsets in India and material and substances management initiatives.
Under its take-back and recycling initiatives, the company encourages customer to drop at certain locations old and used phones, chargers and accessories of all brands. Within the first 45 days of the launch of the initiative, the company collected three tonnes of e-waste and it has been sent to authorized recyclers for recycling.
Technology major Hewlett-Packard has announced the launch of “Power To Change”, a campaign that encourages PC users to make behavioral changes in support of the environment. The campaign users to download a desktop widget that tracks the cumulative energy savings associated with participants turning off PCs when not in use.
The company estimates that if one lakh users shut down their work computers at the end of each day, energy savings could total more than 2,680 kilowatt-hours and carbon emission reductions could total more than 3,500 pounds a day. This is the equivalent of eliminating more than 105 cares from the road each day. The widget has been launched across Asia Pacific and Japan; Europe, West Asia and Africa ; and the Americas. It is available in five languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.
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