From planting trees, to using solar energy, to constructing smart buildings and even collecting litter, corporate India is going all green.

Every corporate wants to be eco friendly in some way or the other. Take the case of Johnson and Johnson Ltd’s plant in Mulund, Mumbai, where biodegradable waste is recycled or the Leela Kempinski in Mumbai that has invested in maintaining massive gardens in and around the premises of the hotel to encourage greenery and environment friendly ambience. The hotel also uses natural gas as boiler fuel that almost nullifies the air pollution compared to oil fired ones.

As far as the hospitality industry is concerned, the list of initiatives taken by the hoteliers to conserve the environment is exhaustive. The Orchid, an Eco-tel hotel in Mumbai is a best example of this. From the basic architecture of the building, to water conservation, to use of rubber wood instead of real wood, to use of energy saving devices, the hotel does it all to qualify as an eco friendly hotel. The Park in New Delhi, The Ambassador Pallava in Chennai and The Lake Palace in Udaipur may not be as savvy as The Orchid’ but they do use energy saving devices to conserve electricity. Moreover all of them reuse biodegradable waste generated in their hotels and also deploy various techniques to conserve water.

The mother of all was RETREAT (Resource Efficient TERI Retreat for Environmental Awareness and Training) located in Gurgaon District. The building is country’s first-ever eco-friendly building complex. Home to a state-of-the-art training complex cum conference centre of the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), the complex is powered by a photovoltaic-gasifier hybrid renewable energy system, which uses waste biomass and solar radiation as sources of energy. It also boasts of the first solar-roof in India. Air conditioning, equivalent to a conventional 35-tonnes capacity system, is provided by an earth air tunnel, which consumes a fraction of the energy used in a conventional system. The waste-water is treated using plants, which means that the complex emits no waste.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), for instance, has taken various initiatives to prevent air pollution. It launched an environment-friendly petrol pump in Delhi. With vapour recovery system, the petrol pump prevents unburned petroleum vapour from entering the atmosphere by converting it into less harmful compounds.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) shares the growing concern on issues related to environment and occupational health and safety. The organisation has launched a host of products like wind electric generators, solar heating systems, solar photovoltaic systems, solar lanterns and battery powered road vehicles in a bid to conserve the environment.

Likes of LG electronics have introduced environment-friendly initiatives such as rainwater-harvesting, solar water heaters for canteen applications and converting effluent, treatment plant (ETP) sludge into bricks.

Punjab National Bank has initiated various environmental drives that include van mahotsav, tree plantation camps, pollution check-up camps, environment awareness camps, maintaining parks, etc. The list is exhaustive. Almost everybody is in the race. And to assist the competitors to take part in the race, there are likes of CoRE, CII’s Environmental Management Division (EMD) and Concept Hospitality Ltd, amongst others.