The achievement reflects PLL’s unwavering commitment to environmental excellence, sustainable operations and responsible energy practices that contribute to a cleaner and greener future.

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Every day, I get up, and the first thing on my mind is how AI changed the world while I was asleep. Companies and governments are very aggressive when it comes to AI usage. Artificial intelligence is changing how industries operate, how people interact with technology & even how economies grow. The scale of adoption is remarkable, but so is the energy behind it. Training robust AI systems demands enormous computing resources & running them every day adds another layer of energy use. This has started to raise a difficult but important question—what is the real carbon footprint of AI & can it be managed in line with global climate goals?

The scale of the problem

Building AI models is not a small task. Large language models and deep learning systems need weeks of training on hundreds or even thousands of processors. Studies have shown that developing one of the biggest models today can release carbon emissions equal to those produced by several cars over their lifetime.

And training is only the start. Once the model is ready, it needs to be deployed. Billions of queries, conversations, or searches are processed every day. Each interaction on its own might use little energy, but when multiplied at scale, the demand is huge. Add to that the cooling required in data centres & the footprint becomes even more serious.

Why businesses should care

The carbon impact of AI is not just a technical side issue. It cuts across regulation, cost, reputation & strategy. Governments are moving quickly to make emissions disclosure mandatory. The EU’s new reporting rules are a clear signal of where things are heading.

Investors also want more transparency. They expect companies to demonstrate that innovation and sustainability can coexist. For customers, there is a risk of mistrust if a company promotes its green credentials but runs highly energy-intensive AI systems without addressing the impact.

There is also the cost factor. Energy prices are rising & inefficient AI workloads are not only unsustainable for the environment but expensive to maintain over time.

What companies are doing about it

The organizations are inclined to use more specialized models to get results, and they are ditching the bigger models with less efficacy.

Lighter, more specialised models can deliver good results without the same energy drain. Research into pruning and optimisation is opening new ways to reduce computational needs.

Cloud providers are investing heavily in renewable power for their data centres. Solar, wind & hydropower are being integrated to run AI workloads more cleanly. Hardware innovation is also moving forward—better chips, liquid cooling systems & improved energy management are all making a difference.

For businesses that depend on AI services, choosing partners and vendors with strong renewable commitments is starting to become part of procurement and vendor selection.

What leaders should keep in mind

Here, it helps to think in simple terms. The following points are shaping how executives respond:

• Sustainability cannot be separate from digital strategy. AI adoption must sit inside the broader climate agenda.
• Governance needs cross-functional input. CIOs, CFOs & sustainability leads should work together rather than in silos.
• Transparent reporting builds trust. Showing the emissions linked to AI use signals accountability.
• Efficiency can be a source of advantage. Offering or using greener AI services may become a point of differentiation.

The paradox of AI and sustainability

There is also an irony here. While AI has its own carbon costs, it can also be a tool to help reduce emissions elsewhere. AI systems are already being used to optimise supply chains, improve energy grid management & support precision agriculture. All of these applications can drive measurable sustainability gains.

This creates a balancing act. The challenge is not to stop using AI but to ensure that the value it creates for sustainability outweighs the emissions it generates. That means being selective, thoughtful & transparent about how AI is applied.

Looking ahead

The demand for AI will keep growing. Generative models, automation & real-time analytics are moving into more industries & with them, the energy required to support this technology will also rise. The key is not to slow down innovation but to scale it responsibly.

Companies that act early will be better prepared. Those who invest in greener AI infrastructure, in renewable energy sourcing & in transparent disclosures will find it easier to navigate future regulation and investor scrutiny. They will also gain credibility in markets where sustainability is a major concern.

Final thought

AI has incredible potential, but the environmental impact cannot be ignored. The carbon footprint of AI is now a strategic issue. While we struggle to keep the carbon emissions down, we also want to excel in the AI race.

It’s peculiar to see how the West is responding to this threat. While they have been very vocal about the carbon emissions through industrialization in developing countries, they are almost quiet on AI-emitted/caused carbon.

Leaders have an opportunity to demonstrate that technology and climate responsibility can progress in tandem. The ones who succeed will not only manage risks but also set themselves apart as real innovators in the next phase of sustainable growth.

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Addressing the gathering, Ms. Nandan lauded IICA for such timely initiatives in the domain of ESG, she reaffirmed the continued support of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to the IICA. While addressing the concerning impacts of Climate Change she emphasized the significance of resource efficiency which is being promoted by MoEFCC by adoption of the mandate of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Further, she enlightened the gathering about the Green Credit Programmer of the MoEFCC, and highlighted the need for promoting adoption of green initiatives by the Corporates and including green credits in the ESG Reporting.

. She also highlighted about Mission Life of the Government of India and reminded the gathering about the onus on the present generation to leave a safe and secure future for coming generations. She said that IICA trained budding ESG professionals have potential to aid in taking several agendas of Government further to next levels.

Shri Praveen Kumar, DG&CEO, IICA  said that the ESG Programmer further adds to the legacy of IICA to take timely initiatives to cater the needs of transformation in industries through building capacities of the corporate functionaries. He highlighted that IICA has also formed a ‘National Association of Impact Leaders’ which is a membership-based association only for ESG professionals, certified by the IICA. The association will provide a platform for professional advancement and engagement to its members. In future this association may also act as a regulatory body to strengthen the ESG Profession in India.

Dr. Garima Dadhich, Head School of Business Environment, IICA said that Impact Leader Programme is first of its kind in India designed specifically for creating most needed ESG professionals.  Ms Geetanjali Master from UNICEF emphasized the long association of UNICEF and IICA for promoting humane aspects of ESG.  Mr. Shankar Venkateswaran, Adjunct Faculty, IICA, enlightened the gathering about the present trends in the domain of ESG. He also emphasized the social concerns that underlie environmental impacts. Dr. Ravi Raj Atrey highlighted that the responsibility and capability of leading businesses with minimal negative impacts on the earth and its people while also not compromising on financial targets, distinguishes an ESG impact leader. The event was attended by fifty budding ESG Professionals who are senior corporate officials enrolled in the programmer.

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Indore metro will be equipped with various other amenities for smooth commutes. This includes fully air conditioned environment, automation-2 technology (driverless mechanism), CCTV camera surveillance, platform screen door system (an area around the metro track will be covered with glass) and LED display boards on the trains. An emergency button will be installed through which passengers will be able to directly communicate with the driver or control room.

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Today, as we mark World Environment Day through the #BeatPlasticPollution campaign with the theme “Ecosystem Restoration,” we are reminded that people’s action on plastic pollution matters.
Whether it’s polluting our landscapes or choking marine life, lightweight plastic is a major threat to the global environment and requires immediate action.

Plastic is now a ubiquitous pollutant. Plastic waste is found everywhere, from the remotest corners of the earth to the deepest trenches of the oceans. Time is ticking on PLASTIC BOMB, and when the equivalent of more than 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into our oceans, rivers and lakes every day, it puts nature into emergency mode.

World Environment Day has been celebrated year after year since 1973, 50 years ago, as a global initiative to raise awareness and inspire action to protect and preserve the environment. Are we really serious about protecting and preserving the environment? Today we will talk about it, but what about tomorrow?
Where are we today, let me give you a quick glance on the same. (Source United Nations)
 More than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year worldwide, half of which is designed to be used only once. Of that, less than 10 per cent is recycled.
 An estimated 19-23 million tonnes end up in lakes, rivers and seas annually. That is approximately the weight of 2,200 Eiffel Towers all together.
 Microplastics – tiny plastic particles up to 5mm in diameter – find their way into food, water and air. It is estimated that each person on the planet consumes more than 50,000 plastic particles per year –and many more if inhalation is considered.
 Discarded or burnt single-use plastic harms human health and biodiversity and pollutes every ecosystem from mountain tops to the ocean floor.
 With available science and solutions to tackle the problem, governments, companies and other stakeholders must scale up and speed actions to solve this crisis.
In our everyday lives today, plastic has many valuable uses, but our reliance on single-use plastic products has increased, with serious environmental, social, economic and health consequences. Every day, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute around the world, and approximately five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

Through the regular use of single-use plastic, fossil and human activities on Earth today have so impacted the environment that significant geological change and a new marine microbial habitat, the “plastisphere”, have emerged – an ecosystem that has adapted to the man-made plastic environment.

So how did we get here?
In the early 1950s to 1970s, only a small amount of plastic was produced and used, so plastic waste was relatively manageable. However, in the decades between the 1970s and the 1990s, the production and use of plastics more than tripled. At the beginning of the 20th century, the amount of plastic waste produced increased at an alarming rate beyond the levels of the previous 40 years. Today, we produce about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste every year.

Of the nearly seven billion tonnes of plastic waste generated worldwide, only less than 10% has been recycled. Millions of tonnes of plastic waste are either lost in the environment or sometimes transported thousands of kilometres to third world countries where they are incinerated or landfilled, further exacerbating climatic conditions and global warming. Systemic change is needed to stop the flow of plastic waste into the environment.
But it is not too late to mend our ways. We must heed the call of Mother Earth and strive to live sustainably. Now that the world has recognised the problem and governments, industry and other stakeholders are beginning to act. We have seen many positive actions, but the truth is that we all need to do more and stop PLASTIC BOMB at the source. Systemic change is needed to stop the flow of plastic waste into the environment.
All this underlines how important this World Environment Day is in mobilising transformative action in all parts of the world. Today, protecting the environment is everyone’s responsibility. Small actions by individuals can together make a big impact. UNEP has called on people to eliminate plastic as much as possible and move to a circular economy. It has also called on people to join the #BeatPlasticPollution online campaign and share their initiatives and solutions to tackle plastic pollution. The steps that governments and companies are taking to fight plastic pollution are the result of this action.
It is time to change the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastic. Ultimately, the problem of plastic pollution requires concerted efforts by governments, industry and individuals to reduce plastic consumption, improve recycling infrastructure and promote sustainable practices.

SURESH RATHOD

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The floating sheets of ice called the ice shelves play a multi-faceted role in maintaining the stability of a glacier. Ice shelves connect a glacier to the landmass. The ice sheet mass balance, sea stratification, and bottom water formation are important parameters for the balancing of a glacier. Latent and sensible heat processes do play important roles here.

The AIS is one of the largest glacier drainage basins in the world, located on the east coast of Antarctica, at about 70ºS Latitude, 70ºE Longitude. The AIS dynamics and mass balance help in understanding the changes in the global climate scenario.

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Addressing the media, the Minister said, “The importance of sanitation and effective solid waste management has been brought to the forefront now due to the COVID crisis. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the present situation could have been much worse had it not been for the critical part that SBM-U has played in the last five years to ensure a high degree of cleanliness and sanitation in urban areas. Five years ago, we introduced Swachh Survekshan (SS), the annual cleanliness survey for urban India that has proven immensely successful when it comes to improving urban cleanliness through a spirit of healthy competition.

However, since it is a ranking system, several of our cities, despite doing exceptionally well, were not being recognized appropriately. The Ministry, therefore, devised the Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities – a comprehensive framework similar to our examination systems where each ward in every city must achieve a certain standard across 24 different components of solid waste management (SWM) and is graded based on overall marks received”.

He further added, “Our aim is to institutionalize as well as bring consistency and transparency when it comes to SWM. This certification is not only an acknowledgement of the clean status of Urban Local Bodies and strengthened SWM systems but also a mark of trust and reliability akin to universally known standards. Moreover, the performance of cities under the Star Rating Protocol is crucial as it carries significant weightage when it comes to their final assessment in Swachh Survekshan.”

The protocol has been devised in a holistic manner including components such as cleanliness of drains & water bodies, plastic waste management, managing construction & demolition waste, etc. which are critical drivers for achieving garbage free cities. While the key thrust of this protocol is on SWM, it also takes care of ensuring certain minimum standards of sanitation through a set of prerequisites defined in the framework.

Also present at the conference was Shri Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA who added, “To ensure that the Protocol has a SMART framework, we developed a three-stage assessment process. In the first stage, ULBs populate their progress data on the portal along with supporting documents within a particular timeframe. The second stage involves a desktop assessment by a third-party agency selected and appointed by MoHUA. Claims of cities that clear the desktop assessment are then verified through independent field level observations. In the recent phase of Star Rating Assessment, 1435 cities applied. During the assessments, 1.19 crore citizen feedbacks and over 10 lakh geo-tagged pictures were collected and 5175 solid waste processing plants were visited by 1210 field assessors.

While 698 cities cleared the desktop assessment, 141 cities have been certified with Star Rating during field assessment. The low number of certifications signifies the rigorous and robust certification mechanism of the protocol”. Launching the revised protocol for the Star Rating Framework, Shri Mishra elaborated, “Our endeavor is to constantly revisit and strengthen the framework basis the feedback received from cities. The new protocol will consider ward-wise geo-mapping, monitoring of SWM value chain through ICT interventions like Swachh Nagar App and zone-wise rating in cities with population of 50 lakh+”.

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India has consciously chosen a path for environment friendly and energy efficient technologies while phasing out Ozone Depleting Substances (ODSs). Importantly, India is one among the few countries globally and a pioneer in some cases in the use of technologies, which are non-Ozone Depleting and have a low Global Warming Potential (GWP).

India had proactively and successfully taken the challenge of complete phase out of hydrochlorofluoro- carbon (HCFC)-141 b, which is a chemical used by foam manufacturing enterprises by 1.1.2020. On 31 December, 2019, as part of the Government’s commitment for moving towards environment friendly technologies, in a significant first, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) brought out a notification in the Gazette of India through which the issuance of import license for HCFC-141b is prohibited from 1st January, 2020 under Ozone Depleting Substances (Regulation and Control) Amendment Rules, 2019 issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

HCFC-141b is not produced in the country and all the domestic requirements are met through imports. With this notification, prohibiting the import of HCFC-141 b, the country has completely phased out the important ozone depleting chemical. Simultaneously, the use of HCFC-141 b by foam manufacturing industry has also been closed as on 1st January, 2020 under the Ozone Depleting Substances (Regulation and Control) Amendment Rules, 2014.

Nearly, 50 % of the consumption of ozone depleting chemicals in the country was attributable to HCFC-141 b in the foam sector.

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“We, the people of India, request you to please take leadership to resolve the serious problem of air pollution and its health impact in the whole country, especially in the Indo-Gangetic plain and most specifically Delhi, which is choking under a thick, lethal smog,” the letter read.

Our doctors have told us we are in a state of national health emergency. There is no time for reactive measures,” it said. “We earnestly request you to save our children, our elderly, our most vulnerable who suffer the worst effects of pollution.”

The environmentalists include Jyoti Pande of Care for Air, Ravina Raj Kohli of My Right To Breathe, Atul Goyal of United Residents Joint Action and Brikesh Singh of Clean Air Collective.

They rued that instead of fixing the problem, every political party “remains intent on fixing the blame while Indians continue to die due to the terrible air”.

“Each breath we take is killing and our loved ones faster, yet, we can’t do anything about it makes us feel helpless, sad and angry,” the environmentalists said.

Pollution levels in the National Capital Region shot up again on Sunday morning, with the air quality bordering the ‘severe plus’ category at several places. The air quality index (AQI) in Delhi stood at 494 at 4 pm, the highest since November 6, 2016, when it was 497.

“Your government is in power in most of the north Indian states and can improve enforcement of existing laws that will prevent open burning of every kind which is now contributing maximally to poor air quality, especially through the malignant particulate matter that causes irreversible damage to our bodies,” the environmentalists said.

They pointed out that according to AIIMS, emergency admissions due to pollution have gone up by 15-20 per cent in Delhi.

“Mostly, people are suffering from chest and respiratory ailments. But these aren’t the only risks we face. Cardiovascular risks, heart attacks, strokes and other diseases also rise during times of episodic spikes like we are seeing now,” the letter read.

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