Carbon mapping | Engagement | Strategic collaboration

The Tata group is facing up to the challenge of climate change and making it integral to its processes. The broad idea is to develop a common approach to the critical questions confronting the group's businesses on the environmental front, and formulate policies that can deal effectively with issues that impact climate change. Across the Tata group, there has been considerable progress in terms of developing abatement strategies, increasing awareness and determining best practices.

The group embarked on its climate change journey in July 2008, with the formation of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Tata Quality Management Services (TQMS), a centrally administered organisation that draws on the experience and expertise of senior Tata leaders. The CoE works under the direction of the high-level Climate Change Steering Committee that is led by Prasad Menon, director, Tata Industries, and chairman, TQMS. It is also supported by the Climate Change Working Group (WG), comprising chief sustainability officers of key Tata companies.

Carbon mapping and abatement
A climate change policy has been articulated at the group level. This functions as a common framework for change and ensures that the changes taking place are institutionalised and implemented in more companies. The policy also takes note of the unique identity and market conditions of the industries that each company operates in. The policy has been adopted by all Tata companies and importantly, every company has benefited from the deep commitment of its senior leadership.

The carbon footprint of the 50 largest Tata companies has been estimated and their carbon management strategy articulated. The remaining smaller Tata companies are being mapped through the administration of a questionnaire. Early estimates indicate that specific emissions can be brought down by 10-15 per cent if Tata companies adopt abatement measures, instead of going down the business-as-usual growth path.

What's interesting is that several new business opportunities have emerged, such as green power from Tata Power, nanotechnology applications from the innovation centre of Tata Chemicals and the supply of special steel for offshore wind farms by Tata Steel Europe.

Engagement and awareness
A total of 35,000 Tata managers have been exposed to the basic concepts of climate change and about 300 climate change 'champions' have been created to propagate the message across the group.

Climate change was incorporated as one of the areas of emphasis in the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) assessment from 2010. Today there is greater engagement with thinkers in the areas of technology, policy and business models that are relevant to a low-carbon world.

Strategic collaboration
In order to gain experience on various issues related to climate change (listed below), collaboration and engagement is undertaken with institutes (such as IISC and IITB), forward-thinking companies and global organisations (such as UNEP / UN Global Compact Caring for Climate Initiative). The themes, in general, are:

• Evolving knowledge on climate science
• Collaborative projects on sustainability (greening Bombay House, electric vehicle systems, green townships, improvements in steel processes, etc.)
• Generating knowledge and sharing best practices for evolving a strategic tool for climate change
• Exploring technical solutions for a low-carbon economy

The group is also part of the Prime Minister’s Committee of Low Carbon Strategies for India chaired by Dr Kirit Parikh, and it also leads the sub-committee on the transport sector.

While there are several issues that will need to be tackled in the coming months and years, one thing that has become clear is that what is good for the climate is also good for business; the two are not mutually exclusive. For example, energy efficiency not only cuts emissions, but it also brings costs down. Similarly, alternative energy is a growing business opportunity in Europe and India, and if companies can develop sustainable models, it would benefit both the climate and business.

Thus while the journey began with the intention of doing the right thing as a socially responsible corporate house, it may well turn out that this has been the right thing to do from a business perspective as well.