Ramadas Kamath is an Executive Vice President and the Head of Infrastructure, Facilities, Administration, Security, and Sustainability at Infosys. He speaks to us on the sustainability vision of InfosysBSE 0.11 % and the road ahead.
Given, the far reaching implications of Paris accord how do you see the sustainability landscape change in India?
The Paris accord was an important milestone for the global community. IT is the first time all participating nations agreed on reducing emissions — called Paris agreement. The countries including India have committed “Intended nationally determined contributions”. The agreement will become binding once 55 member countries contributing 55% emissions ratify the agreement. Recently, it has been announced that India would aim to formally join the Paris climate agreement this year. It is a challenge for India as the country needs to ensure resources for high economic growth and tackle rapid urbanization, but at the same time reduce emissions. It is also an opportunity for sustainability business to thrive and develop into a major sector. Initiatives towards improving efficiencies will become important in every sector from agriculture to manufacturing to IT. Renewable energy sector is expected to see a major growth. Innovation will be the key to achieve more with less. The need of the hour is to have a collaborative effort from both businesses and policy makers in India to address the threat of climate change.
How does Infosys view sustainability?
At Infosys, sustainability has been a core business principle since the company’s inception. Infosys has always been at the forefront of the movement to chart an action plan for mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change. We were among very few companies globally to have taken up aggressive voluntary goals at the UN – to become carbon neutral, to reduce our per capita electricity consumption by 50% and to source 100% of our electricity from renewables – by 2018 (baseline year of 2008). We are on course to achieve these goals and believe that businesses need to delink growth from resource consumption by adopting sustainable practices. The company has experienced that sustainable designs and practices not only reduce resource consumption but also make sound business sense.
Source:ET
