Logica , a leading IT and business services company , hosted the Seventh World Environment (WE) Forum at the Logica campus , Bangalore. The WE Forum initiated by Logica , Tesco and IFMA (International Facility Management Association) in the year 2007 provides a collaborative platform for socially responsible corporates , NGOs and environmentalists to discuss and share the most prevalent environmental issues and the initiatives to combat the same. Present at the forum were several renowned environmental experts like Gopakaumar , environmentalist and founder Navgati , Chandrashekar Hariharan , an economist turned eco-entrepreneur and Vishwanathan , advisor at Rainwater Club.
Inaugurated by Abhay Gupte , CEO Logica , India the forum saw several distinguished speakers like Captain Dayalu Arasappa‚ Head - Support & Facilities and Chief Security Officer , Tesco , M.S. Bhalla , Director & General Manager of Dell’s Consumer Business in India , Chitra Paduvalapatna , EHS Manager , Wipro Technologies , Vaibhav Bhatia , System Analyst and head of green initiative HP India and S. Bhagavan , Director Sauter Race Technologies Pvt. Ltd sharing the best practices adopted by the respective companies to reduce carbon footprints.
Speaking at the forum Abhay Gupte , CEO , Logica India , mentioned , “Driving sustainability has always been Logica’s priority and we have responded actively to the challenges and opportunities around climate change and the environment. With our consistent focus on lowering carbon emission , Logica in India achieved a remarkable reduction on carbon footprint by 11.3 percent over the last 18 months. We have set another ambitious yet achievable target for the next one year to reduce carbon footprint across our facilities by 10%.”
Elaborating on the success of the forum , Mr. Mahesh V of IFMA said , “The World Environment Forum meets have helped the members to understand and enhance their knowledge in the area of Environment , Health & Safety and create significant impact in their performance in day to day operations. IFMA will continue to support all such noble initiatives that will help its members , partners and organizations involved in the development of the profession and create a sustainable environment.”
Enabling common man make a difference to the environment
Renowned environmentalist Gopakumar , has been a pioneer in educating corporates , schools and various education institutes for years on the issues of global warming. At the forum , he threw light on empowering citizens to undertake eco-leadership and be the change we want to drive. Talking on the similar note Vishwanathan , an advisor at the Rainwater Club , compelled the audience to think and take action on our water consumption patterns and adopt the six sutra of rain water harvesting. He presented simple and practical ideas for people to convert their homes into self sufficient entities in the future.
Best practices shared by responsible corporates
Speaking at the forum Captain Dayalu Arasappa , Head - Support & Facilities and Chief Security Officer , Tesco , mentioned “We at Tesco have undertaken conscious initiatives to go green. Simple steps like using solar-water heating for our kitchens and gyms , switching to LED lighting system , maintaining infrastructure software to hibernate our desktop systems have considerably reduced our carbon emissions. Further , as a retailer , we will print the carbon footprint on each of our products , to help consumers make an informed choice while making a purchase.”
The closing presentation on best practices shared by Mr. Mahesh Bhalla , Director General Manager , Consumer Business , Dell highlighted the organization’s goal to become the greenest company in the world. “Dell’s commitment is to minimize direct impact/carbon neutrality , empower consumers to go green and enable a low carbon economy. As an organization we have achieved carbon neutrality and we continue to strive for better benchmarks in future.” Inspired by the promising and novel forum , Mr. Anil Gupta , CEO , ARM Embedded Technologies Pvt Ltd , offered to host the next meet at the company’s premises in August 2009.
