With the push towards net zero and carbon neutrality, companies are opting for multiple measures to reduce their carbon emissions. One such widely adopted measure is use of renewable energy in operations which aligns with the GoI’s renewable energy target of 175GW by 2022 and 450GW by 2030.

Companies can utilize renewable energy in multiple ways to reduce their carbon footprint – a) establish captive renewable power generation facility, b) procure from power trading platforms or other green power generators, c) purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) and/or d) use carbon credits from community projects to offset carbon in operations.

From our study of leading Indian companies, we find that companies mostly establish their captive renewable power generation facility for solar (both on-site and off-site) and biogas. For wind power, companies usually procure from a wind energy generating company through power purchase agreements and very few companies purchase RECs for carbon reduction. While manufacturing companies usually establish their own captive plant, many service companies in Information Technology industry reported that they procure renewable energy. Infosys has externally verified CSR projects that have resulted in 347,470 tCO2e offsets. The company plans to use these carbon credits to meet its carbon neutral commitment in future.

Indian companies utilize more than one form of renewable energy in their operations to manage their carbon emissions. Solar is the most deployed renewable energy source across almost all industries, except Consumer staples where biofuel is utilized by all companies by virtue of the nature of their operations. Many manufacturing companies also utilize waste heat as an energy source.

Renewable energy is mainly used by companies in their core operations for lighting and power backup. Auto makers and consumer staples companies utilize it in their assembly lines and packeting centres, respectively. Some real estate companies include solar energy as part of landscaping in their residential and commercial projects. Banks find it very useful to power branches and ATMs located in remote places or where power failure takes place very frequently. And telecom firms like Bharti Airtel use it for their Main Switching Centres and Data Centres. In addition to the core application, some ancillary uses of renewable energy are for powering street lights, traffic signals in townships, canteen (solar water heaters, biogas, etc) and guest blocks.

• Avenue Supermarkets: 79 stores used solar power panels to meet part of their electricity requirement with a total installed capacity of 7 MW.
• J&K Bank: The Bank has taken the initiative of installing Solar PV cell based sources of power in its USBs at Ladakh, wherever feasible.

We observe that while renewable energy is widely adopted across industries, the disclosure as to its share in total electricity consumed in operations continues to be limited. Only 26 companies shared short-term targets to increase share of renewable energy in their operations. Most of them aspire to meet half of their energy requirement from renewable sources by 2030.

Given the potential of renewable energy to help mitigate global warming, companies across industries incorporate it in their product or service offerings too, where feasible. For instance, BEL manufactures solar cells for space applications; Havells manufactures solar and luminaries; Jaypee’s Hotel division utilizes solar water heater for guests; Shree Renuka Sugar has a power generation business from bagasse; and banks promote investments in renewable energy projects.

Utility companies are diversifying into solar, wind and biofuel projects, in line with the national commitment to generate 40% electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030. NTPC has reduced coal consumption by co-firing with biomass and aims to blend up to 10% of biomass-based fuels with coal at coal-based stations.

Automakers have ventured into electric vehicles (EV) which has got a lot of push from the Government. Some of the recent policy changes are a) the approval of FAME-II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) scheme, b) the inclusion of automobile and components sector (including advanced chemical cell battery manufacturing) in the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme in Nov 2020 and c) the vehicle scrappage policy in February 2021. Over 14 Indian states have finalized or are in the process of finalizing EV policies that support the national electric mobility policies.

Auto makers have introduced EVs in various categories and are continuing to develop prototypes for more luxurious vehicles with advanced features. Marquee 2-wheeler manufacturers like Bajaj, TVS, Hero have released their e2W products in the market and have also invested in start-ups. Bajaj Auto has done a strategic investment in Yulu Bikes, a Bengaluru-based start-up that operates battery powered electric two-wheeler. Hero MotoCorp invested in a two-wheeler EV start-up - Ather Energy.

Along with direct sales of EVs, companies are deploying their vehicles in fleet services for faster adoption. Mahindra & Mahindra deployed 50 EVs on the Uber platform in Hyderabad and Tata Motors has tied up with Prakriti E-Mobility, an app-based EV taxi provider, to deploy Tigor EVs in New Delhi.

Though the e-mobility universe is developing and expanding, we find that corporate India is still testing EV’s potential to help reduce their emissions from logistics. Only 11 companies reported use of EV for movement within their facilities, employee commute and outbound logistics. Wipro became the first major Indian business to join EV100 and has committed to transition its global fleet to EVs by 2030. In 2019-20, they launched the program in four more cities and clocked 3.4 Million kms across 63,000 trips saving around 850 tons of CO2 eq.

Bioenergy is a type of clean energy generated from organic matter, such as biomass, biodegradable agricultural & Industrial wastes, municipal solid waste, sewage/waste water etc. It is generated in the form of power and fuels like biogas, BioCNG, liquid biofuels, pellet/briquettes, etc. These find application as transport fuel, cooking fuel, heating in industries, etc.

GoI has five programs on biogas – Waste-to-Energy program, biogas scheme, national policy of biofuels, Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative and GOBAR-dhan¹.

Some companies generate biogas from their canteen food waste and utilize it for cooking, in place of LPG. Consumer staples companies utilize biomass in their boilers as a fuel and cement companies fire biomass in their kilns as part of waste co-processing. Indian Oil commissioned a 5-tonne per day bio-methanation plant at Faridabad in Sep 2019, which shall convert municipal bio-waste to CBG.

The national policy on biofuels and the SATAT Initiative together promote the development of green transport fuel – ethanol blended fuel, Compressed Bio-gas (CBG) and BioCNG. The revised biofuel policy 2018 aims to achieve 20% blending of biofuels with fossil-based fuels by 2030. It emphasizes on the promotion of advanced Bio-fuels (2G and 3G fuels) including CBG. We find that some of the leading energy companies (HPCL and IOCL) have initiated steps towards 2G and 3G bio fuels.

Around 40% companies undertake or contribute to renewable energy projects for the community. These are usually for lighting (household/school/hospital/streets, solar lamps), clean fuel (biogas, solar electric chulhas, solar thermal chulhas, solar cookers, biogas plants), solar irrigation pumps, solar hot water system and solar dryers). J&K Bank donated a 14-seater battery operated vehicle to Sewa Bharti, a Non-Governmental Organization, for ferrying students from hostel to the school managed by the NGO at Katra.