These awardsnow have tomove towards

awarding andpromoting innovativeand scalable ideas —ideas that can moveIndia towards low-carbon growth and helpus build a resilienteconomy that canwithstand the onslaughtof climate change.

—Chandra BhushanDeputy Director General

Center for Science andEnvironment

Sunderbans is afascinating ecosystemwhich provides

livelihood to people. I believethat no conservation workswithout its communities. Andthese are people who liveclose to the forestarea. TheEarth CareAwards willtranslate themessage intoall mangrovecentred areas. It is akind of moral booster for usas well as our villagers.

—Biswajit Roy ChowdhuryNature Environment & Wildlife

Society

We have evolved rice-based no-till farmingsystem. This is the

complete solution for rice-growing countrieslike India forovercomingcatastrophicproblems offood Shortageand globalwarming. Winning this awardis a good stepping stone in mylife. I am sure my work will berecognised by the masses aswell as policy makers.

—Chandrashekhar BhadsavleSaguna Rural Foundation

We are the first greenfield airport in thecountry with public

private partnership. On 18thAugust 2015, we became thefirst airport in the world to befully powered bysolar energy.These awardswill certainlygive otherairports amajor boost tobecome self-sufficient.

—Jose ThomasCochin International Airport

Ltd (CIAL)

We are glad that wehave been recognisedfor our extraordinary

leadership to make Panajisafe, resilient and sustainableand reduce the adverse percapita environmental impactof cities, includingby payingspecificattention toair qualityand municipaland other wastemanagement.

—Clive PaivaCorporation of the City of

Panaji

When Mr Chan-drashekhar Bhadsavlewalked on to the stage

last week to receive the 7th JSWThe Times of India Earth CareAward 2016 in the Innovation forclimate protection category, forhis simple yet innovate techniqueof farming, it marked a shift inthe way we perceive the farmingcommunity.

Being the son of a freedomfighter, Mr. Bhadsavle, a BSc inagriculture, did his Masters inFood Science and Technologyfrom University of California,USA, came back to India in 1976for good and started farming onhis ancestral property. With sup-port from his family and a teamof farmers, he developed SagunaBaug to its current glory.

Rice production in India ismainly rain fed and hence is vul-nerable to climate change. Con-ventional methods used for ricecultivation are highly labour andwater intensive. Mr Bhadsavle ofSaguna Rural Foundation has in-novated the Saguna Rice Tech-nique (SRT), a simple method ofcultivation in which raised bedsare used for cultivation. Thesebeds allow the farmers to sowseeds directly, reducing labourcosts and the amount of water re-quired for the cultivation of crops.

Launched in 2007-8, Earth CareAwards seek to recognise actionsand innovations for climatechange mitigation and adaptationby communities, entrepreneurs,industries, and urban bodies. Theawards recognise and promote theinitiatives and inventions ingreenhouse gases (GHG) reduc-tion, natural resource conserva-tion, development and promotionof innovative eco-friendly prac-tices across various sectors.

The Centre for EnvironmentEducation (CEE) is the knowledgepartner for the awards. CEE hasbeen instrumental in conceptu-alising a technical and method-ological framework for assess-ment of the mitigation and adap-tation parameters to define theevaluation process. In 2011, thisinitiative extended its reach to allSAARC countries and was joined

by TERRE Policy Centre as theOutreach partner. The awards cer-emony was held at the JSW Cen-tre, which has LEED PlatinumCertification, the highest possi-ble green rating. The eminent jurywas headed by Dr RaghunathMashelkar FRS, President Glob-al Research Alliance. The jury in-cluded McKinsey's Rajat Gupta,TERRE Policy Centre's chairper-son Rajendra Shende, Centre for

Development Studies director,Aneeta Benninger, Dr Suhas WaniDirector ICRISAT, Kartikeya VSarabhai, Founder Director, Cen-tre for Environment Education,Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Di-rector General, Centre for Scienceand Environment.

During the ceremony chiefguest Dr R A Mashelkar, FRS,president, Global Research Al-

liance said, “Speed, scale and sus-tainability are three most impor-tant things for a country to moveahead. How do we scale to makea difference? Innovation is not do-ing things differently but doing adifferent thing. Going forward,how we can achieve this is of ut-most importance.”

“Earth Care Awards simplystand out from others for threereasons. First, the critical global

challenge of climate change adap-tation and mitigation that theseawards champion. Second, therange of stakeholders, from an in-dividual to an institution and froman industry to a community, thatit recognises. Third, the extraor-dinary rigour that is followed inthe selection process.” said DrMashelkar.

Highlighting the commitmentto save the earth through con-certed action on the ground, JSWFoundation Chairperson SangitaJindal said: “We are ready to cre-ate a platform to share our learn-ings and to be part of the larger

movement to make our earth live-able. To quote our prime minis-ter: “fighting climate change callsfor innovation, cooperation andwill power to make the changesthat the world needs.”

In the category ‘Leadership inUrban Climate Action', Corpora-tion of the City of Panaji (CCP)won the award for making the cityof Panaji bin free and landfill free.CCP has been able to achievechange in policies and imple-mentation of policies such as col-lection of sanitation fee of ` 1 perhousehold per day annually withproperty tax. It has made build-

ing composting units in housingsocieties a compulsory. Thesestrategies have helped to achievethe four ’R’s of reduce, reuse, re-cycle and recovering of the waste.It has also been able to achieve100% source segregation and doorto door collection. The city ofPanaji has thus been landfill freeand bin-free for 10 years, thus re-ducing the GHGs.

Cochin International AirportLimited (CIAL) won an award inthe same category — 'Leadershipin Urban Climate Action' for be-coming the first airport in theworld to be fully powered by so-lar energy. Looking at the successof CIAL in solar, Ministry of Civ-

il Aviation and Airport Authori-ty of India (AAI) have agreed toinstall solar panels across 16 air-ports in India.

Nature Environment andWildlife Society (NEWS) won the'Community Based Mitigationand Adaptation of Water Re-sources, Agriculture, Forestry andOther Land Use' award. NEWShas worked extensively for con-servation of ecosystems in thefragile and highly vulnerablemangrove areas of Sunderbans.Creating community participa-tion combined with rigorous sci-entific knowledge, NEWS has

been successfully able to bringabout regeneration of the area.

Bangladesh is one of most vul-nerable countries facing the threatof Climate Change. Challengesinclude drought, salinity intru-sion, cyclones, tidal waves, flood-ing, water logging and river ero-sion. Practical Action(Bangladesh) — an internationalnon-governmental organisation(NGO) that uses technology tochallenge poverty in developingcountries, won the Earth CareAwards 2016 Commendation inthe category 'Community BasedMitigation and Adaptation in Wa-ter Resources, Agriculture,Forestry and Other Land Use’.

Sangita Jindal, chairperson,JSW Foundation, spoke toSheetal Srivastava on why

organisations today have becomemore accountable when it comesto corporate social responsibili-ty. Excerpts from an interview:

CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THECONCEPT OF JSW FOUNDATIONCAME ABOUT?Today, organisations have becomemore responsible and account-able, and I would attribute it large-ly to the formal steps taken by thegovernment in defining the CSRBill where you mandatorilyspend at least two per cent of prof-it. However, for us, it started muchearlier when we created the Dhar-mada account which meant thata percentage of our sales wouldbe kept aside for Dharma - “Char-ity.” The collected funds were fo-cused towards various initiativesmeant for improving the lives ofthe people.

As JSW Group expanded, theneed for a social development armof the organisation was felt.Hence in 1989, JSW Foundationwas created to initiate a more for-mal and structured approach to-wards very many ground initia-tives that we were already plan-ning and implementing. TodayJSW Foundation is working in aholistic and integrated mannerkeeping the core business strate-gy in perspective for addressingsocial and environmental impactsof businesses.

WHAT DO YOU THINK CAN BEDONE TO MAKE THE BUSINESSWORLD AWARE OF THE NEED FORCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSI-BILITY?India’s development sector hasevolved substantially over thepast decade and a lot of the en-

couragement can be attributed tothe commendable work done bythe business world.

While the Companies Act, 2013gave the mandate for corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) whichmeant formal introduction ofCSR to the dashboard of the cor-porates, the exiting foundationswere already making an impactwith initiatives they felt pas-sionate about such as education,health, malnutrition, amongstothers.

Today, it’s not about awareness.Collaboration is the key. If youwant inclusive and sustainablegrowth, you need to provide moreplatforms for not just Public Pri-vate Partnerships but also en-courage individual corporates tocollaborate with each other forjointly undertaking CSR activi-ties. This will not just help reduceoperational costs; we will also beable to undertake long-term proj-ects and sustain them and moreimportantly learn from each oth-er’s experiences.

TO WHAT WOULD YOU CREDIT THESUCCESS OF JSW FOUNDATIONPRACTICING SOCIALLY RESPON-SIBLE BUSINESS?

Success is very subjective. As Imentioned earlier, Dharmada wasthe core belief with which we be-gan. Today, having invested emo-tionally and intellectually, I cansay that the journey that our foun-dation undertook was not easy.With each milestone we get nos-talgic and feel emotional aboutthe efforts put in by each andevery one of our team memberand their ability to collaborate.For us, at JSW Foundation, thisjourney has just begun and wehave miles to go.

HOW HAS EARTH CARE AWARDS2016 BEEN DIFFERENT FROM THEPREVIOUS YEARS?Being in the seventh year now, Ithink the consistency to deliverand ensure that we not only ex-pand the region of awardees butalso improve the applications,both quantitatively and qualita-tively, echoes the sentiment withwhich we started. I am happy toshare that we received 300 plusapplications this year. While thenumber of applicants have in-creased our eminent jury mem-bers have become extremely strin-gent with the evaluation process.That says it all!

Dr. R A MASHELKAR,FRS, President, GlobalResearch Alliance,

speaks to Sheetal Srivastavaabout climate change and whyit is often cited as the world'sgreatest challenge. Excerpts:

Climate change is often cited asthe world's greatest challengeand the largest threat to humanlife in the future. Do you agree?Yes, I believe so. But there aresolutions, and they no longerchampion just ‘environmental-ism’ but both the ecology andthe economy.

India has to jump a develop-ment cycle and we have donethis many times. For example,we jumped the landline andwent straight to the mobilephone era. Then within a recordtime, we gave a billion IndiansAadhar cards, which provideboth identity and authentica-tion.Using these two, we tookanother pole vault.We createdthe fastest and the biggest ever(encompassing over 250 millionIndians) financial inclusionthrough JAM, i.e. Jandhan Yoj-na, Aadhar and Mobile.This iswhat I mean by pole vaulting in-stead of leap frogging. Today, wehave the same opportunity withpower generation — we couldtransition from predominantlycoal to the optimum mix of re-newable energy and non-re-newable energy. Within a year,we have installed around 180million LEDs. We should aim atgoing from ‘carbon neutral’ to‘carbon negative.’ The successfactors, as always, will be thespeed, scale and sustainabilityof our implementation.The digital revolution is an-other critical enabler which canprovide a plethora of solutionsthat limit our environmentalimpact. India must be no lessthan the world leader in settingthe sustainability example, bothin policy and in practice.

Should western countries beforced to pay more attention toreducing carbon footprint thancountries like India, as the de-veloped world has contributedmore towards damaging the en-vironment?Climate change adversely af-fects us all. Yes, developed coun-tries must certainly focus on ur-gently reducing their vast andunsustainable carbon footprint.They must take responsibilityfor their historic emissions andsupport developing countries tohelp avoid dangerous climatechange

At the same time, developingcountries have a responsibilityto not be near-sighted and makethe same mistakes as the de-veloped economies did! We need

to do one better to make surethe world remains habitable forour future generations. Climatechange is a truly global issueand requires concerted effortfrom all—countries, as well asindividuals.

Do you see globalisation as apositive or a negative in theworld? If positive, in what ways?If negative, in what ways?Globalisation is most certainlya positive force in the world.There is no doubt that multi-lateral free trade boosts worldproductivity and prosperity andhas contributed to pulling mil-lions out of poverty. Some ob-servers have expressed con-cerns about ‘peak globalisation’or even ‘deglobalisation’, quot-ing incidents like BREXIT. I be-lieve such incidents may markthe end of globalisation as wehave known it. These so-calleddeglobalisation events andtrends are an indication of wel-come structural changes in theglobal economy.

The mandate for Globalisa-tion 2.0 is to be an 'InclusiveGlobalisation'. And there areindications that this countriespreviously left out of the worldeconomy are now beginning toparticipate. In spite of BREX-IT, China is pushing for a pan-Asia free-trade zone; the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations is forminga common market; and Africancountries have started negoti-ating a continent-wide free-trade area. Speaking locally, In-dian companies investedUSD139 billion abroad in 2015— a 43 percent increase in onlyfive years. I believe this new andimproved globalisation is hereto stay.

Do you consider the preserva-tion of archaeological sites im-portant and the allocation of re-sources for their preservation agood use of these resources?Absolutely! As a scientist, Idon't see archaeological sites asjust silent witnesses of erasgone by; but as portals that of-fer deep insights into our col-lective future. As they say: “ifyou do not know where youcome from, then you don’t knowwhere you are going.” Withoutcareful preservation and studyof archaeological sites wewould have no knowledge ofHomo Erectus, no records of thecopper or bronze ages, no tombof Tutankahmun, no civilisa-tion from Harappa…

Think of the valuable boostthese sites give to our economythrough domestic and overseastourism. At the same time, ar-chaeological sites hold cultur-al and emotional value.

‘India has to jump adevelopment cycle’

‘India’s development sector hasevolved over the past decade’

CATEGORY 1COMMUNITY

OF INVENTIONS &INNOVATIONSTHE WINNERS

Community-basedmitigation and adaptationof water resources,agriculture, forestry andother land usesFocus is on initiatives related to conservationof water and land resources reflectingmitigation and adaptation goals aimed atincreasing resilience of communities, to tacklechallenges arising out of climate change.

Nature Environment andWildlife Society (NEWS)

Initiative of engaging vulnerablecommunities has promoted mangrove

regeneration, restoration and reforestation,community nurseries of threatened species,sustainable agricultural and low carbonpractices. This initiative builds capacities ofcommunities to deal with the challengesposed by climate change. Earth Care Awardsrecognise the efforts of Stewards, Communityand its leaders, Government Agencies and theNEWS team for successfully demonstratinglivelihood based climate change adaptationmodel.

Practical Action

Bangladesh, innovated the SandbarCropping model, which has enabled poor

and landless communities to accessunderutilised river sand bars for pumpkincultivation. This initiative has put in placeprocesses ranging from beneficiaryidentification to market research and marketlinks. Communities in climate stressed areashave found new hope with this initiative. EarthCare Awards commend the efforts of PracticalAction Team.

Salute to India's green heroesEarth Care Awards Bring Recognition To Community Groups & Corporations That Show Eco Initiative

Award winners with the jury members

Dr R A Mashelkar withSangita Jindal

CATEGORY 2INNOVATION

Innovation for climateprotectionFocus is on development and use ofinnovative product or services which helpreduce the greenhouse gas emissions.

Saguna Rural Foundation

Saguna Rural Foundation, led byChandrashekhar Bhadsavle, has innovated

the Saguna Rice Technique (SRT) of paddycultivation. The technique contributes toreduction of time, resources and chemicalinputs in paddy cultivation. Use of simplemould on raised beds enables farmers to sowseeds with less drudgery and cost. Earth CareAwards recognise this innovative techniquewhich has the potential to revolutionisefarming practices with emphasis on paddycultivation not only in India but also in thewhole of Asia.

CATEGORY 3URBANLeadership in urbanclimate actionThe focus is on initiatives that reflectincorporation of climate change adaptationand mitigation addressing vulnerability andreduction of greenhouse gas emissionsassociated with cities.

Cochin International Airport

Became the first airport in the world to befully powered by solar energy by

commissioning a 12 MWp solar power plant.ECA lauds Cochin International Airport'scommitment to reduce its Carbon footprintand recognises its leadership in UrbanClimate Action.

The Corporation of the City ofPanaji (CCP)

The integrated decentralized solid wastemanagement system introduced in the

city of Panaji by The Corporation of the Cityof Panaji (CCP) has been able to achieve100% source segregation. The efforts ofPanaji have resulted in a landfill-free and bin-free city. The award acknowledges the CCP'sactions which have led to benefits like betterenvironment and better health for its citizens,and cost saving on waste disposal.

THE WINNERS

It is good to seethese awardsachieve their

potential of rewardinginventions and theirsuccessful on-groundapplication, resulting inadding to the toolkit forclimate changeadaptation andmitigation. The award isgiven on a very high andobjective standard ofevaluation.

—Prof. Aneeta BenningerExecutive Director,

Centre for DevelopmentStudies and Activities

The rigorousprocess ofdiscovery and

selection has led tosurfacing of amazing,innovative models whichcould scale up and makea significant impact onavailability of resourcesfor large parts of ourpopulation, which aredeprived of water, powerand other sources ofenergy.

—Rajat Gupta, SeniorPartner, McKinsey India

The videos takethe jury on a virtu-al tour to the

shortlisted applicantswhich present not onlythe minds of the innova-tors but also the practicalbenefits that accrue toclimate and societies.The intense discussionprocess among the juryliterally churns the oceanto upwell the pearls thatdeserve the rewards.

—Rajendra ShendeChairman TERRE Policycentre, former director

UNEP

These awards areunique in thesense that they

recognise theinnovations foradaptation andmitigation strategies tominimise the impact ofclimate change on theplanet in differentcategories such asindividuals orinstitutions undertakingthe innovations.

—Dr Suhas P Wani,Director, ICRISAT

Development Center

These awardshave establisheda rigorous

process of identifyingtruly outstandingexamples of work in thearea of climate change.In recognising innovativework it is also settingnew standards andchallenging communitiesto do better.

—Kartekeya Sarabhai ,Founder Director, Centre

for EnvironmentEducation

earth careAWARDS | 2016

A JSW & THE TIMES OF INDIA INITIATIVE

THE JURY

THE TIMES OF INDIA, XXXDAY, DECEMEBER 00, 2016THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI , FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2016 9