CII-Godrej GBC: 15 years of national contribution

This year, the CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre (CII-Godrej GBC) in Hyderabad, India, celebrates its 15th anniversary. It has been 15 inspiring years of national contribution, with many examples demonstrating how going the green way not only addresses ecological issues and concerns but also makes good business sense.

The CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre was established in 2004 as one of 10 Centres of Excellence of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), aimed to foster and promote ecologically sustainable business growth models and facilitate India emerge as one of the global leaders in green businesses.

“Over the years, CII-Godrej GBC has helped Indian industry to gain competitive advantages through its services and it is inspiring to witness how interactions and partnerships with our national and international stakeholders has grown tremendously,” says Kiran Ananth, Principal Counsellor at CII-Godrej GBC in Hyderabad. “CII-Godrej GBC, with the support of stakeholders, has developed business models which are ecologically superior and economically viable,” adds Kiran.

“In the initial years of CII-Godrej GBC’s establishment, there were 14 professionals broadly working on energy efficiency projects and services. Today, we have over 100 professionals offering world class services to various national and international stakeholders in the areas of energy efficiency, green buildings, green companies, green products, renewable energy, cleantech projects and other related areas.”

“The journey all through has been meaningful and fulfilling. Now as we move on, we are looking ahead and are opening two new fields of activity: green education and green entrepreneurship,” says Kiran.

CII-Godrej GBC has, through its movement approach, had a big impact among both small, medium and large Indian companies. Kiran Ananth believes that the high professionalism and close cooperation are part of the explanation for the success:

“All our activities are led by well-known industry representatives. Our way of working is also very hands on – we visit the companies that want to take part of our services, we get familiar with their special conditions and we deliver customized solutions to their challenges,” he says.

CII-Godrej GBC has walked the talk: The office in Hyderabad is India’s first platinum rated green building. The centre was awarded the prestigious rating in the year 2004. Since then, this demonstration building has played a catalytic role in the spread and growth of 21st century green building movement in India. As to date, over 5,400 green building projects, amounting to over seven billion square feet of registered green building footprint, are adopting CII-IGBC’s green building standards. This is just one of many examples of the impact.

• Over 30,000 people have been trained in green building concepts and technologies. Nearly 3,900 are currently active as IGBC Accredited Professionals. All these professionals are facilitating the design of IGBC rated green building projects, across India.
• To enable the end users to choose the right green products and material, CII-Godrej GBC has launched GreenPro; an ecolabel for the products. This ecolabel is based on a holistic lifecycle-based approach. GreenPro assesses how green the product is based on its lifecycle and accordingly certifies the product. GreenPro labelling standards are at par with international standards and are recognised by Global Eco-labelling Network (GEN). Today, over 700 GreenPro-labelled products from over 90 companies are GreenPro certified.
• The Centre has launched the GreenCo rating. It is a first of its kind in the world and evaluates how green a company is and suggests the way forward on resource conservation and energy and environmental management. Over 550 companies (including 260 GreenCo rated units) are adopting the GreenCo rating system. The Government of India in its Nationally Determined Contribution to the United Nations has acknowledged GreenCo rating as one of the voluntary initiatives undertaken by Indian industry in addressing climate change concerns. GreenCo was featured by UNIDO as an important initiative by UNIDO in its 50th anniversary publication.
• Within energy efficiency, more than 1,800 detailed energy audits have been carried out among companies of all sizes in almost all sectors of the Indian industry. CII-Godrej GBC also offers its energy efficiency services to Japan, Korea, Australia, Indonesia and several other countries. The energy-saving measures that have followed the audits are estimated to save companies a total of over three billion rupees or more than SEK 400 million annually.
• In total, as at August 2019, CII-Godrej GBC’s various initiatives have facilitated the reduction of over 16 million tons of CO₂ per year.

Building on the experiences learnt and understanding the imminent needs of Indian industry, CII-Godrej GBC is now investing ahead and will soon open two new focus areas – green education and green entrepreneurship.

“The focus will be on creating market access, mentoring and providing knowledge and input of the industry needs in terms of green transformation. Exciting times lie ahead,” says Kiran Ananth.

CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre

Participants at the 15-year celebration, including Ludvig Lindström of ISIA and Andreas Molin of PPAM Solkraft.

Some of the staff at CII-GBC.

1,000 species of plants and animals have been introduced in the surrounding gardens.