Bengaluru, 5th June 2020 : Ecom Express, a leading technology enabled end-to-end logistics solutions provider to e-commerce industry, is pleased to announce that it has appointed Mr. Amit Kumar as company’s new General Manager – Environment Health and Safety (EHS) as of June 2020. In his current role, Amit will be responsible for the Health & Safety of more than 30000+ employees working across 2600+ locations.
“Amit is a vital component to the company’s senior leadership in critical EHS performance areas. We believe in adhering to the highest safety standards as imperative and he has enterprise responsibility for the EHS operations,” said Mr. T.A. Krishnan, Co-founder and CEO, Ecom Express. “We are confident that his considerable experience will guide the company towards enhanced environment health and safety outcomes,” he added.
In his new role, Mr. Kumar will be responsible for the Management systems and strategic planning for Environment, Social, Health & Safety Management System with major focus on Road Safety and environmental initiatives. He brings the right focus on business growth, operational excellence, Behaviour Based Safety Programs, Process safety, Risk reduction strategies, and Coaching senior management on Safety Leadership. His responsibilities will also include ensuring compliance, implementation, communications and adherence to the EHS regulations and best practices set by the government. He will also provide his expertise, consulting and services to ensure these are in compliance with safety norms.
Commenting on the appointment, Amit Kumar, General Manager, Environment Health and Safety, Ecom Express said, “I am excited to have been granted this opportunity to bring an overall cultural change with respect to environment and safety practices. I look forward to integrating every aspect of the organisation which results in sustainable business excellence.”
Amit comes with over a decade of EHS experience in designing and executing EHS strategies across dispersed organisation, with a focus on business growth, operational excellence, behaviour based safety programs, process safety, risk reduction strategies, and coaching senior management on safety leadership.
Amit’s career in EHS spans numerous industries, including manufacturing, process-based industry, FMCG and IT. Most recently, Amit served as HSE Lead for Compass group where he was responsible for Health and Safety of more than 14000 employees and worked closely with South East Asia Leadership.
Ramky Enviro commemorates World Environment Day through a series of programmes that support environmentalism, enhance village sanitisation practices, and increase access to education around Covid-19
HYDERABAD, 5th June2020: Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (REEL), a leading provider of comprehensive environment management services in India and Asia, today commemorated World Environment Day through the launch of several citizenship initiatives that strengthens REEL’s commitment to the environment and the communities where it operates.
With the aim of building awareness and spurring action around protecting the environment, Ramky Enviro’s employees across 25 different locations in both rural and urban India today engaged in a range of activities, including:
•Plantingtrees: REEL employees planted 200,000 saplings across various sites to promote environmental regeneration;
•Neighbourhood clean-up: the REEL team led the cleaning and sanitisation of 100 villages to help them become waste-free, and implemented a plan to help them minimise pollution going forward;
•Digital webinars: 15,000 students from both government and private schools participated in a REEL-sponsored webinar to raise awareness around the importance of personal hygiene, cleanliness and social-distancing to combat the spread of Covid-19; and
•Compost distribution to villagers: 2,000 tonnes of compost generated from various REEL sites were distributed free of cost to local farmers in nearby villages.
Mr Goutham Reddy, Managing Director & CEO of REEL, said, “The environment’s deterioration is the leading concern of our time, and we as humans have an un-written contract with the universe to protect the environment. A number of ongoing – yet addressable – issues have contributed to the problem, including the increasing amount of waste which we are unable to dispose of, to global warming and rising greenhouse gas emissions, among many other reasons. It is more important than ever to protect the environment by adopting to Best Environmentally Available Technology while managing the environment and spread awareness to encourage environmentalism and natural preservation. With this in mind, the Ramky Enviro team is proud to support communities across India and contribute to a cleaner and safer environment by supporting important sustainability initiatives.”
05 June 2020: ITC Limited, one of India’s leading multi-business conglomerates and an exemplar in environment sustainability said that it is rapidly scaling up its highly acclaimed Integrated Watershed Development and Environmental Resources Replenishment initiatives through partnerships with various State governments. These partnerships will be largely focussed on water stewardship and biodiversity conservation.
Over the past decades, ITC has demonstrated environmental stewardship by not only ensuring efficient use of resources but also by augmenting precious natural capital. ITC has the distinction of being the only company in the world to be carbon positive for over 14 years, water positive for over 17 years and solid waste recycling positive for over 12 years. Over 41% of the energy consumed by ITC is met through renewable sources. ITC’s afforestation programme has greened over 7,76,000 acres. Its watershed development initiatives have covered over 1 million acres, whilst its solid waste management programme Well Being out of Waste (WoW) covers over 1 crore citizens across the country. ITC is also a pioneer in green building movement in the country with over 25 Platinum-rated green buildings. Some of its other notable social investment initiatives at scale include women empowerment, primary education, skilling and vocational training, livestock development, health & sanitation and so on. ITC’s businesses have supported over 6 million sustainable livelihoods till date.
Commenting on the company’s resolve to reinforce its environment sustainability initiatives, Mr. Chitranjan Dar, Corporate Management Committee Member of ITC responsible for overall supervision of Quality Assurance, ITC Life Sciences & Technology Centre, Central Projects Organisation and Environment, Health & Safety said, “Going forward, our focus on sustainability and environment stewardship would gain larger significance in the post-Covid-19 period. The lockdown period has witnessed nature healing herself and going forward, citizens will expect corporates to demonstrate larger steps to replenish and preserve the environment. At ITC, we believe that expanding interventions in environment replenishment and addressing climate change will be critical for a sustainable future. An enterprise of tomorrow is one that pursues competitive growth to create larger value for society even as it enriches the environment and creates opportunities for sustainable livelihoods. Our Integrated Watershed Development programme, large scale afforestation programme, our renewable energy and green buildings footprint are some of the successful pivots in our strategy to pursue ‘Responsible Competitiveness’ – a socio-economic construct that underpins the ITC’s objective to be future ready whilst ensuring that growth is sustainable and inclusive.”
It is also ITC’s strong belief that Biodiversity conservation and water stewardship are extremely critical aspects of environment protection as forests and other biomass are natural sponges which improves groundwater recharge and sub-surface flows. Such focus is even more relevant today when the world is increasingly imparting a renewed focus on biodiversity conservation as a means to maintain vital ecological balance.
ITC’s Water Stewardship Initiatives
ITC’s extensive watershed programme today covers more than 1,000,000 acres across India. Under this program, the company has adopted a comprehensive approach focussed on supply augmentation and demand side management. Supply augmentation covers area treatment, water harvesting, groundwater recharge and biodiversity conservation and demand side management aims at improving water use efficiency in principal crops of area. ITC’s Kovai Paperboards factory in Tamil Nadu has earned the unique distinction of being the only facility in India to be awarded the Alliance for Water Stewardship Platinum-level certification – the highest recognition for water stewardship in the world.
The success of ITC’s integrated water management approach has not only benefitted farmers by enhancing crop yields and expanding cultivation area but has also led to large savings through efficiency in water usage.
ITC’s Water Stewardship programme is also a community based participatory approach. It employs low cost technologies to arrest erosion, enhance moisture, conserve rainwater and recharge groundwater. The benefits of ITC’s water stewardship programme are multiple and multidimensional.
With water scarcity increasingly becoming an area of concern, ITC continues to focus on an integrated water management approach within the fence that includes investing in water conservation measures and rainwater harvesting initiatives at its units. For larger coverage and scale, ITC has also partnered with various State Government departments and programmes such as MGNREGS programme and NABARD for watershed development in 5.6 lakh acres area.
Similarly, as part of demand management, ITC has entered a novel partnership with Water Resources Department of Maharashtra to improve water productivity in 2.42 lakh acres of command area which is under four irrigation schemes spread in 4 districts of the state. This partnership aims at supporting the Government’s ‘More Crop per Drop’ credo and reduce crop water demand in the dams.
These large scale interventions will serve as meaningful examples and inspire many more such fruitful programmes in this area to benefit farmers.
ITC’s Biodiversity management initiatives:
To improve biodiversity, ITC is partnering with Forest departments in Maharashtra and Telangana to improve forest cover through soil moisture conservation and fringe area development. The Company is also partnering with Wasteland and Pastureland development board of Rajasthan for regeneration of pasturelands in the State. These partnerships will help impact 79,000 acres of forest land and 2.47 lakh acres of pasturelands in 11 districts.
As a responsible Corporate, ITC is committed to continue to strengthen and scale up its environmental sustainability interventions through-and post the pandemic. The company believes that business is an integral organ of society that can bring about transformational change in social value creation, besides enriching the environment. It is with this conviction that ITC continues to pursue business models that envisages the creation of social and environmental capital and economic wealth as a unified strategy.
● Ola to launch a host of initiatives across technology innovation, driver training and vehicle standards
● Ola to ensure strict adherence to hygiene and safety including mandatory fumigation of cars every 48 hours; opens its network of 500+ fumigation centres across the country in hotspots and airports
Bangalore, 5th June 2020: India’s leading mobility platform and one of the world’s largest ride-hailing companies, Ola, has committed a sum of ₹500 crores over the next year towards various initiatives globally, to enhance safety in mobility in our fight against COVID-19. Ola has resumed operations across the country and is now available in 200+ cities with enhanced safety protocols. Unveiling its new initiative ‘Ride Safe India’, Ola is reaffirming its long-term focus to providing driver-partners and citizens, a safe and reliable mobility experience, as India continues its fight against the pandemic, post the lockdown.
Resolute in its approach to enhancing cleanliness and hygiene protocols, Ola will aim to drive various safety initiatives which include highest levels of driver standards, a host of technology advancements including a newly designed COVID-ready app, hygiene and safety benchmark for vehicles and an industry-wide collective mission in its fight against COVID.
‘Ride Safe India’ centers on Ola’s commitment to go beyond and enable customers and drivers partners to collectively enjoy the highest standards of cleanliness with prevention and sanitisation protocols. This will cover all modes of Ola’s offerings, be it 4-Wheelers, 3-Wheelers and 2-Wheelers. As a large number of major cities saw operations resuming on the Ola app in the previous week, Ola has set up a network of over 500 fumigation centres across the country at various hotspots and airports, to enable mandatory fumigation for all vehicles every 48 hours. This will be above and beyond the routine wipe downs and sanitisation of high touch surfaces of vehicles by drivers after every ride.
Driver safety will continue to be a focus for the company with the introduction of dedicated training modules and certification. This will also include strict adherence to daily temperature checks and wearing of masks through the selfie authentication mechanism. From monitoring wellness of drivers to integration with the Arogya Setu app, technology innovations will help shape the new norm in the mobility industry. Ola has also introduced 5 layers of safety that include strictly adhering to steps that ensure the highest standards of safety and hygiene for every ride.
Here is a link to a video highlighting all the steps taken before and after every ride.
Speaking about Ola’s continued push towards providing safe mobility solutions, Anand Subramanian, Spokesperson and Head of Communications, Ola said, “Mobility is at the core of economic and social progress and the country at this time needs substantive action and sustained innovation to be able to revive from the effects of the pandemic. ‘Ride Safe India’ is Ola’s commitment to helping the industry raise its benchmarks and collectively bring best practices and innovation for the larger good of the community.”
He added, “We have already pioneered a series of initiatives including regular driver wellness checks, vehicle fumigation protocols and mask-detection technology amongst others to raise the bar of safety for consumers and driver-partners. We are taking this further by building a robust network of 500+ fumigation centres across the country. Our commitment of ₹500 crores towards various safety initiatives globally in the time to come, will help pave the way for new standards of mobility in the post-COVID world.”
Citizens and driver-partners will also be able to access the Ride Safe India Microsite which will have information on Ola’s safety initiatives across the platform, community and the Industry. Ola is also inviting feedback and ideas from citizens through this platform, that can help towards building a safer mobility ecosystem for the country.
Around 30 graduates from leading B-Schools in India including IIM-B, IIM-L, MDI-Gurgaon and NMIMS are undergoing virtual summer internship at HCCB
Bangalore, June 5, 2020 – Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), one of India’s leading FMCG companies, went digital to accommodate around 30 interns from the leading B-Schools of the country amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. HCCB tweaked its internship programme to fulfil its promise at a time when many organisations in the country have revoked their internship programmes due to logistical reasons.
Indrajeet Sengupta, Executive Director & Chief Human Resources Officer, HCCB says, “The pandemic seemed to have arrived to play spoilsport but we at HCCB decided to keep our promise by going fully digital! It was not only about living up to our values but also about their careers. But most importantly, we did not want to compromise with the quality of our programme that we have so diligently designed and developed. Doing the right thing matters to us.”
HCCB’s virtual summer internship programme covers on-the-job training, working on a real business problem, and an end to end solution through online classes, interactions with senior leadership teams. online mentoring, data analysis, and project reviews. The online module of the internship also meant that the company had to make arrangements for providing access to company’s data and database while also ensuring security of the systems, data and devices.
The programme has been designed and executed to ensure a seamless transition for the interns from college to the corporate world, without visiting the workplace or meeting anyone in person. The young graduates have the chance to engage with the leadership team at regular intervals including the CEO of HCCB, Christina Ruggiero. The virtual experience allows interns to seek clarifications from the leadership at any time of the day who are all ears.
With the markets being shut, production at factories being halted and only select depots and distributors being operational at the start of the internship program, HCCB customised its modules while ensuring a holistic internship programme that merits the learning experience at one of India’s top FMCG companies. For the interns, the detailed groundwork for analysing the market was done using secondary research data. Regular reviews took place by project guides for fine tuning the outcomes, reports and recommendations.
The important lesson that interns got to learn from the experience was adapting to adversity, being flexible, and trying to control only what is under one’s control. For most interns their computer screens became a “home inside their homes”, as they got an opportunity to interact with the leadership team and bond with each other online, thus instilling a sense of belonging.
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