14 Sep, 2016
The 11th Sustainability Summit on "Global Goals & Competitiveness" was conducted by 'CII-ITC-Centre of Excellence for Sustainability Development' on 14-15 September, 2016. The main objective of this Summit was to focus on some of the key goals of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals under “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
In pictures (from left) Mr. Suneel Pandey, Mr. Anirban Gosh, Mr. Ravi Singh, Mr. R Mukundan, Mr. Edgar Endrukaitis, and Mr. S Majumdar at the 11th Sustainability Summit
The 13 out of 17 global goals have direct and indirect links with Aichi Biodiversity Targets and our National Biodiversity Targets for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of biodiversity. Businesses have a critical role to play and self-interest in contributing to delivering the Global Goals, as they are directly or indirectly dependent on the natural capital.
Set up in 2014, India Business and Biodiversity Initiative (IBBI), a forerunner initiative worldwide, has enabled Indian businesses to understand the impacts and dependencies of their operations and value chain on natural capital, as well as in guiding them to integrate biodiversity into their business decisions and strategies. This has resulted in paving a way for greater resilience, ensuring security of supply and ultimately attaining a sustainable business model. The dedicated efforts of CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development, and Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH have supported the Indian businesses in becoming champions of biodiversity. The commitment of 25 signatory companies has granted a global recognition to the IBBI.
Biodiversity is the foundation of ecosystems, and ecosystem services are a cross-cutting issue for all dimensions of human well-being. Biodiversity is also having strong linkages with all 17 SDGs. Therefore, sound ecological management is necessary to increase persistent and better quality flows of ecosystem services to humanity and businesses which will also facilitate progress towards the SDGs. The session "Biodiversity: An Opportunity for Business” during the summit brought together leading Indian businesses and experts who shared their experiences in addressing biodiversity risks and creating new opportunities.
Mr. R Mukundan, Chairman, IBBI and Managing Director & CEO, Tata Chemicals Limited emphasised the need to understand the complete value chain and especially the consumers. Only 100 companies across the globe govern 80% of the consumption and it is hence imperative to educate the customers to better understand the value of biological diversity.
Mr. Edgar Endrukaitis, Director, Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, addressing the session on “Biodiversity: An Opportunity for Business”
Mr. Edgar Endrukaitis, Director, Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, GIZ India commended the efforts of IBBI member companies and their contribution in the past two years since IBBI’s establishment. He also expressed ‘the need to have market instruments and need to be innovative to achieve the targets of growth Indian envisages in the next years.’
‘Biodiversity for ITC is not only Nature, but they see biodiversity from the viewpoint of ecosystem services it provides, which has helped ITC in previous years to be carbon, water, solid waste positive company,’ stated Mr. Suneel Pandey, Vice President – Plantation & Raw Material, ITC Limited.
Dr. S Majumdar, Chief Sustainability Officer, JSW Group explained the significance of how an integrated approach is at JSW’s core business operations. Mr. Majumdar shared ‘SDGs 14 and 15 are directly related to biological diversity and if business fails to take action in addressing that then the businesses would be at the losing end.’
Mr. Ravi Singh, Secretary General & CEO, WWF India stated that we are currently in the era of Anthropocene where human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Mr. Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra expressed how the group has benefited from joining IBBI and as a result they are now doing biodiversity checks for all new sites.
'Cinematic session' being presented by Ms. Seema Arora, Executive Director, CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development
Later in the evening a ‘cinematic session’ was presented by Ms. Seema Arora, Executive Director, CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development. The session showcased activities of three Indian companies, which have mainstreamed the idea of biodiversity in their day to day activity and have minimised the damage to biodiversity. The session discussed the process adopted by these companies to deal with the biodiversity risk in their supply chain and operations.
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