Going green doesn’t just have to be about changing your lifestyle, you can make money from it too, says Karuna John.
When Chetan Maini began to envision an electric car for Indian roads, in the 1990s, very few people were familiar with the concept. Indeed, according to him, back then, climate change had not been accepted as such an enormous threat, oil prices were comparatively low, pollution was not viewed as a serious issue, and going electric wasn’t seen as a potential even in niche markets. But Maini decided to forge ahead and set up the Reva Electric Car Company, where he is deputy chairman and chief technical officer. “Despite the scepticism that existed then, we decided to go ahead with little more than gut instinct,” said Maini, who launched Reva, India’s first electric car, in 1994.
That kind of instinct isn’t exclusive to Maini. Arati T Nagaraja, who recently launched Zemé, an organic clothing brand in Bangalore, said she was driven by the same sort of self-assurance and belief, when she completed her studies in San Francisco in 2006, wrote a paper on organic farming, and went on to intern with Speesees, an organic clothing company in San Francisco, before starting her venture. And though it was a gamble, it is one that has paid off. According to Nagaraja, viability for businesses like hers is on the rise, as consumers are becoming more eco-conscious. “The market is growing by 25 to 30 per cent every year,” she said.
While gut instinct drove Maini and Nagaraja toward making environment-friendly products, for others like Amin Manjrekar it turned out that a hobby because a business model. “Farming was my hobby to start with, and with the right timing and encouragement, I took it to the next level,” he said. Manjrekar recalled how his friends were shocked about his abandoning a comfortable career in hotel management, to go ‘green’. “They wondered if I was crazy,” he said. Today, Manjrekar’s company Green Fundas supplies organic farm produce to most hotels and restaurants in the city.
For a few others in the same line of business, their green entrepreneurship also meant bordering on a kind of activism. Sangita Sharma, a Bangalore-based farmer who advocates safe foods and creates seed banks, remembered how six years ago, her research into pesticide residues in food had left her horrified. The organisation Annadana, which she started to promote organic farming, now yields incomes for farmers involved that are up by 30-45 per cent, she added.
In contrast, the circumstance of harsh farmlands led CB Ramkumar to start his venture called Our Native Village, on the city’s outskirts. “While farming, our crops died because we didn’t have electricity to pump ground water. Solar and wind pumps were too expensive,” he said. “Then we thought of developing a self-sustaining model. The original idea was of six huts behind our farmhouse. We now have a 24-room 100 per cent eco resort.” Our Native Village also works to help corporate houses make a kind of statement, with their several eco-packages.
Chandrashekar Hariharan, CEO of Biodiversity Conservation India, meanwhile, spoke of how he’d chosen to become a green entrepreneur long before it turned fashionable. That was in the late-’80s and early-’90s, when “as an NGO, a small team of us worked in the sub-Himalayan hills of Garhwal on water and energy practices, and offered quality of life to many villages, with basic technologies”. By 1994, Hariharan and his team figured that it made better sense for them to offer the same services to urban dwellers, with options of homes that gave them greater autonomy in the use of energy and water, and more effective waste management practices. “The effort was not as much to go ‘eco-friendly’, as much as [it was] to reduce our dependence on the external infrastructure of city corporations,” explained Hariharan. “The need has only become so much greater in these years, thanks to the world’s realisation of the impact of global warming and other grim implications.”
Unlike Hariharan, TJ Joseph, founder and Chief Managing Director of Anu Solar, recognised an opportunity and built a business model around it. “I’m a first-generation entrepreneur from an agrarian background,” he said. “I believed that human needs could be met from a natural resource like solar energy.” With this as a working model, Joseph took over Anu Solar in 1985, and now sells about a lakh of solar heating panels to homes and offices in a year.
While the decision to go green has almost always been backed by an inherent sense of gumption, there’s evidently been a lot of business sense in the move too. “Holistically speaking, diversity and traditional agricultural practices are more productive, and not only sustainable but profitable,” Sharma stated.
Hariharan argued that green projects like Annadana do not suggest a compromise on comfort. “Often, I’m asked this question: does a green project mean more cost? The word ‘green’ is now being used to communicate a broad category of efficiencies, in the approach to project and construction management,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. This is about good and smart management. This is about smart thinking in design, architecture and services. This is not about additional cost.”
Hariharan talked of how professionals like him hadn’t figured the merits of going green for the longest time. “Many of us did not make the connect in the ’60s, even up until the turn of the century, on what happens to the air around us if we don’t optimise the use of ACs, to the soil around us if we didn’t vegetate right, or if we used groundwater [with bore-wells] without caring about long-term consequences,” he recalled. Today, he added, the realisation is writ large, that “they do not suggest that we spend more to achieve these ends. Green projects clearly suggest better and professionally conscientious and efficient use of money and other resources”.
Why then does the eco option become more expensive for the consumer? According to Joseph, that’s probably because of the initial lack of demand. “Once the demand reaches a sustainable level these products are bound to become affordable.” Hariharan testified that “In the last 15 years, BCIL has grown to an Rs 300-million enterprise.” Manjrekar explained that while business and farming plans did make things viable, the most important aspect was about being consistent in the market, in order to sustain growth. “Running an organic business or farm is profitable, provided there is 365-day consistency in production and supply of the right produce,” he said. “ Getting this to work [for Green Fundas] took a lot of ground work and planning, and our cultivations were market-driven.”
Maini added that it was the idea of disorder that probably lent more credence to their plans for the future. “Looking back, it was a brave move. We need disruptions to set things in motion, to start conversations about new possibilities,” he said. The bottom-line for Ramkumar was simple. “An eco-friendly business definitely delivers better margins in the long-term than a regular non-eco business, and it’s also emotionally profitable,” he said.
Annadana Soil and Seed Savers Network
For information on access to organic open pollinated vegetable seeds, visit www.annadana.com Ishana, Gopathi farms, Village Singapura, Vidyaranyapura (94480-68347).
Anu Solar Power
For more information on how you can install a solar powered heater at home, visit www.gethotwater.com .
248, 3rd Cross, 8th Main, Peenya Industrial Area (4245-9261).
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