Pro MFG Sustainable Circular Economy Round Table: Doing Well by Doing Good
#Sustainable #Circulareconomy #BioenergyPro MFG Media was proud to launch its special initiative: Pro MFG Sustainable Circular Economy Series: Doing Well by Doing Good - Powered by BiofuelCircle. The closed-door roundtable involved Champions of Sustainability who shared their valued knowledge on building businesses having Circular Economy as one of their key focus areas.
Pro MFG Sustainable Circular Economy Series: Doing Well by Doing Good - Powered by BiofuelCircle was held on 21 May, 2021. The closed-door roundtable involved Champions of Sustainability; and was a thorough success with evolving inter-relations, interactions and synergies that took place with an aim to further strengthen industries and businesses.
Sustainability in business approach adds not only to ecological social and environmental value, but also fosters industry’s longevity. The discussion combined the scientific disciplines of technology, management, engineering, environment, economy and society and ushered a new approach to the key concepts of Circular Economy and Sustainability.
The event commenced with gusto and Manish Kulkarni, Director at Pro MFG Media moderated the event by proposing two sets of questionnaires to the present dignitaries initiating them to share their useful knowledge on Sustainability and Circular Economy.
The key speakers of the roundtable were as following:
1) Mukul Agrawal, Chief Sustainability Officer, Birla Cellulose, Aditya Birla Group
2) Milind Patke, ED (Biofuels), BPCL
3) Tejashree Joshi, AGM & Head – Environment & Sustainability, Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd.
4) Sudhir Shenoy - Head Sustainability, IMEA and Head -Safety, Health & Environment, India
5) Khushboo Bhatia, CEO, Thermax Onsite Energy Solutions
6) Anant Maheshwari, Lead EHS & Sustainability, ITC Ltd. (Food Business Division)
7) Bipin Odhekar, Head- Sustainability & Operations Excellence, Marico Limited
The panel experts are on the forefront creating an impact in the Indian Manufacturing sector and shared their best practices in creating an ecosystem for Sustainability and Circular Economy in their respective organisations. The key highlights from their narratives are as follows:-
Mukul Agrawal threw light on some key initiatives at Birla Cellulose and said: “Our initiative is to apply the best level of technologies, globally; and therefore we have adopted the European standards of emission & effluents across all our units.” He added,“Our initiative is also on reducing water usage. We have taken several projects on water reduction and currently are the industry leader in this area globally with the lowest water density compared to our competitors, we consume almost 15-20% of the water which is consumed in the other conventional viscose production. Also, we are increasing our bioenergy content and using hybrid energy in our plants. With innovative technologies we are aiming to combat our energy consumption.”
Meeting sustainability goals, Sudhir Shenoy of Henkel asserted: “By 2030, we have streamlined our key sustainability goals and I would like to focus on three work streams which are- climate positive, thermal energy initiatives and circular economy. Along with the UN SDGs, we have set up a vision for 2030 statement, to triple the value we create for the environmental footprint made by our operations, products and services. To reach our goal of becoming three times more efficient by 2030 we've talked about a 3% reduction in energy, water and waste, year on year. Our targets are monitored on a monthly basis, and put into the global framework; there is strong reporting, review, because we strongly believe in protecting our environment for our future generation.”
Commenting on how biofuels can contribute to the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG), Milind Patke of BPCL said: “UCO, that is the used cooking oil based biodiesel, if generated can bring down greenhouse gas emissions by almost 91%. And therefore, it's very important to look at these fuels. Also, while we may not have the downstream industry ready to accept these fuels for various reasons, there is definitely a case for blending these fuels in the fossil fuels; and that's exactly what we are focusing on.”
Anant Maheshwari of ITC Foods spoke of insightful initiatives taken and said: “When it comes to rainwater harvesting, we are targeting to create rainwater harvesting potential over five times than what we are actually consuming and that is across all our manufacturing operations. Packaging is another area where ITC has taken targets with respect to plastics and in fact, this year, ITC will go beyond plastic neutrality, i.e. we will be recycling more plastic than we use.”
Bipin Odhekar of Marico shared his useful insights and said: “We being the biggest buyer of coconuts in India, it is our moral responsibility to work for these farmers who are providing coconuts. So we started a program called Kalpavriksha which actually aims at improving the yield and remuneration of these farmers. So we help farmers understand their farming practices and aid them scientifically; whether it's on soil condition, water management, pesticide management, disease management or high yield variety trees.”
Khushboo Bhatia of Thermax Onsite Energy Solutions shared her valuable inputs and said: “TOESL’s focus area is renewable sustainable biomass and in biofuels space. By supplying utilities on B-O-O basis, we want to ensure that we aid our customers to free up their capital. Our new initiative aims at biogas solution- the Bio CNG solution, where we are setting up a five TPD plant for Bio CNG. Rice stubble that used to get burned and pollutes the environment, we are looking to convert it through an anaerobic digester, into biogas. We are also constantly on the move to work on innovative technologies like hydrogen fuel cells and green hydrogen.”
Tejashree Joshi of Godrej & Boyce Mfg Ltd, spoke of some vital approaches towards sustainability and asserted: “For improving energy efficiency and carbon footprint mitigation we are committed to key global initiatives, like renewable energy enhancement, global alliance for energy productivity and the science based target initiative. Moving forward to the next level, we have now declared our commitment to the EP 100 initiative. We are also committed to doubling our energy productivity by 2030.”
The discussion attained informative goals of sustainable development and discussed solutions to solve diverse environmental problems. The advanced technological suggestions and initiatives with future scope were also discussed; all in hope to create a sustainable ecosystem.
The knowledgeable event was concluded by an address by Suhas Baxi, Co-founder, BiofuelCircle. He appreciated the useful information put forth at the roundtable by the delegates and said: “Having a global perspective amid interaction with global customers and their global tech partners with their global targets, gives us a clear outlook on how organizations and companies are together working towards sustainability; all in vivid and different ways. This gives us key insights into the new innovations developed which will help us march forward in the direction of creating a circular economy.”
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