16 SPECIAL ISSUE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2009, DELHI ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM
Eco drive: Reva deputy chairman Chetan Maini believes it’s important to reflect the zero­pollution philosophy in all aspects of the car.
MAXIMUM MILEAGE
New plant to reflect Reva’s
nature­friendly agenda
The car maker will
invest Rs6 cr towards
green initiatives; the
plant is also vying for
a LEED rating
B Y P OORNIMA M OHANDAS
poornima.m@livemint.com
·························
BANGALORE
I ndia’s first manufacturer of
zero-polluting electric vehi-
cles, Reva Electric Car Co.
Pvt. Ltd (RECC), is taking the
green pledge a step further. Its
second plant coming up in Bom-
masandra, on the outskirts of
Bangalore, will harvest rainwa-
ter, use lots of natural light and
tap solar power.
“Reva’s group philosophy
talks about zero pollution and
I think we have been able to
achieve that in our product,”
says Chetan Maini, deputy
chairman of Bangalore-based
RECC, on the philosophy be-
hind the move. “It was impor-
tant now to reflect this in every
aspect of the product.” While
the plant won’t reach zero-pol-
lution levels, the company is
making efforts to reduce ener-
gy and emissions.
The electric car maker will in-
WHAT'S THE CARBON TRACK OF YOUR CAR?
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Approximate
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vest Rs30 crore in the new plant,
which has the capacity to manu-
facture 30,000 cars a year.
Around 20% of the investment,
or Rs6 crore, would go towards
green initiatives,
including ener-
gy-efficient
THE BUSINESS
structural mate-
rials, ventilation
spots on the
roof, solar panels and rainwater
harvesting facilities.
The factory walls are made of
polycarbon honeycomb, a tough
BUSINESS
GREEN RATING FOR FACTORIES BEING DEVELOPED
In India, the CII­Sohrabji Godrej Green
Business Centre formed the Indian
Green Building Council, a council of
architects, builders and other stake­
holders in the construction industry,
in 2004. It evaluates and grants the
Leadership in Energy and Environ­
ment Design (LEED) rating.
Wipro Technologies Ltd’s
175,000 sq. ft set­up in Gurgaon, and
ITC Ltd’s 170,000 sq. ft Green Cen­
tre, also in Gurgaon, are two LEED­
rated buildings. According to the CII­
Indian Green Building Council report
titled ‘Energy Efficiency in Building
Design and Construction’, Wipro
clocked in energy savings worth
PETROL
Upto 1,000cc 1,000-1,500cc 1,500 and above
Maruti 800 Maruti Swift Honda Accord
Alto Hyundai i20 Skoda Octavia
12 km/litre 10.4km/litre
183g/km 211.5g/km
plastic with cavities inside to let
in diffused natural light and keep
out the heat. A high ceiling will
mean ample ventilation and few-
er fans. The roof will have venti-
lation spots that
ING
will allow air
and light in,
but won’t let
water drip.
The factory
will have the capacity to harvest
as much as 21,500 litres of rain-
water in 15 minutes and store as
ING
much as 65,000 litres. The water
Rs1.02 crore a year and ITC, Rs90
lakh. Around 195 projects, including
offices, banks, airports, hotels, with a
built­up area of at least 110 million
sq. ft, have registered for ratings. So
far, 19 buildings have got the LEED
rating in India.
There is a lot of demand from fac­
tories to go green, says S. Raghupa­
thy, senior director and head, CII­So­
hrabji Godrej Green Business Centre.
So much so that the council is devel­
oping a factory­specific India Green
Factory rating system with 10 facto­
ries on a pilot basis. Reva, however,
has applied for the LEED rating, not
the new green factory rating.
1,000-1,500cc
Maruti Swift
Tata Indica
8km/litre 12km/litre
275g/km 216g/km
HEMANT MISHRA/MINT
will be used through the year to
wash vehicles and for horticul-
ture. Solar panels will be used to
charge the electric vehicles and
waste will also be segregated, re-
cycled and composted to nurture
the plants at the site.
Reva is working on options to
find an alternative to diesel gen-
erators, which are a crucial part
of any manufacturing set-up in
power-hungry countries such as
India. This is an area where solu-
tions are fairly limited, says
Maini. Ultimately, Reva aims to
depend on the sun and battery
power instead of diesel genera-
tors. Due to these measures,
Maini expects the company’s en-
ergy and water bills to shrink by
around 30%.
Reva was set up in 1994 and
seven years of research and 10
patents later, the electric car was
commercially produced in 2001.
The second plant will cater to
both the domestic as well as the
export market and is set to be
completed later this year.
The new plant is already vy-
ing for a Leadership in Energy
and Environment Design
(LEED) rating, a nationally and
internationally accepted
benchmark for design, con-
struction and operation of en-
ergy-saving, green buildings.
SANDEEP BHATNAGAR/MINT
DIESEL
1,500 and above
Toyota Innova
M&M Scorpio
10km/litre
260g/km
Source: Mint analysis
mint
KIRAN KHALAP
Co­founder, Chlorophyll Brand and
Communications Consultancy Pvt Ltd
NOT ALL IS FAUX
D oes green work as a marketing tool?
Two hundred per cent! Surely, unquestionably, without
doubt, indubitably, absolutely, undeniably,
unmistakably, plainly, clearly, obviously, patently,
unequivocally.
In that hyperbolic answer lies the secret of why green is
working as a marketing tool…and will continue to do so for
years to come.
Green is exaggerating to dupe us…and how!
First, let’s find out whether green is in all over the world. Let’s
begin by googling “green businesses”: 143,000,000 results!
There are sites for green jobs, green business tourism, green
entrepreneurs, green…everything. For example, as Tom Szaky
(the founder of TerraCycle), you would have invented a new
form of capitalism called eco-capitalism, where waste is the raw
material. Or if you were in San Francisco during Earth Week,
you could get paid for your (head) hair, since a
non-governmental organization (Matter of Trust) would use
recycled hair to make mats that soak up oil spills.
So is green in? It certainly is for consumers around the world!
More shoppers in North America, Europe, China and Japan
systematically purchased green products in 2008 than in 2007,
according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.
In the US, 16% of consumers—one in six—were systematic
shoppers for green products in 2008.
But is green in for marketeers? Certainly not!
Green is the colour of deception. So widespread is the
practice that there is already a term for it: greenwashing!
TerraChoice, a Canadian research firm that operates the
Canadian government’s EcoLogo programme, sent its
researchers into retailers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Their findings? Only 25 out of 1,000 products or services had
not made claims that are either demonstrably false or that risk
misleading intended audiences!
So, on the one hand, more consumers are choosing greener
options and, on the other, most companies are marketing
products that are fake green!
In the absence of: (a) guidelines that can be easily
comprehended by manufacturers and consumers both;
(b) transparency in communication right down to the
packaging level and;
(c) a watchdog that can act as a deterrent, green marketing is
converting gullible consumers into golden-egg-laying geese.
Apply these three
facilitators of falsehood to
There are several any other trend and you
charlatans in green
marketing. The true
winners will be firms
will see the parallels.
Turn to the desi version
of green: ayurveda. When
excise on ayurvedic
products was reduced,
that committed to the famous brands of pain
balm and cough lozenges
cause before it turned “ayurvedic”
became a cause célèbre overnight. Why? Because
the guidelines for claiming
that a product is ayurvedic
are mind-numbingly vague: that the ingredients find mention in
one of the 20-odd treatises on ayurveda! Several Indian
ayurvedic products exported got banned in those countries.
Why? Because there are no GMP (good manufacturing
practices) guidelines for ayurveda. And in the absence of a
watchdog, anybody with an industrial-strength leaf crusher can
produce anything called ayurvedic.
Is the situation really so bleak?
I don’t believe so. For every 10 marketeers using hyperbole to
attract unquestioning consumers, there is at least one who is
using that very old and trusted ally: truth.
Today, thanks to the Web, consumers and customers talk
more about companies and brands and products among
themselves than the company or brand can ever talk to them. A
Nielsen Global Survey, with a sample size of 26,000 people,
proved that 78% consumers trusted “recommendations from
consumers”. This is 15% higher than the second most credible
source, newspapers.
Organizations and brands can hide behind fig leaves of
half-truths (as the faux greenies are doing right now) only for a
short while. The 21st century is going to be characterized by
stark naked organizations.
So what the truly green companies are doing is using that
very medium to make their goals and behaviour transparent.
For example, ITC India is among the first 10 companies in the
world to adopt the revised reporting procedure as per the G3
guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. On their website,
you can read micro-details of The Triple Bottom Line.
Excel Industries Ltd-India, a leader in agrochemical
intermediates, actually acknowledged the harm that man-made
fertilizers cause to earth and then went ahead and invested
heavily in sustainable solutions instead.
The Shell Sustainability Report acknowledges that
environmental and social data will have its own limitations, and
yet shares as much as it can. Ditto for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
And finally, my favourite example: Patagonia. Read their
revolutionary corporate purpose: “To use business to inspire
and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” To be
able to live up to that ideal, Patagonia actually committed itself
to a lower rate of growth as early as 1996.
So yes, the answer is clear: There are several charlatans and
exploiters in green marketing. Yet, as this market matures, as
knowledge deepens, the true winners will be the green
champions such as ITC and Patagonia, who committed to the
cause before it became a cause célèbre.
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