Water conservation now a corporate need in Bangalore

Today, industries have realised the need for conservation of energy and water as they know that an unsustainable approach will cost them more in the long run. On Saturday, Wipro EcoEnergy and the Indian Institute of Science presented ‘Best Practices in Energy and Water Conservation’ — a discussion that highlighted a few sustainable practices implemented by Indian corporates to date.

Reduce, reuse, recycle
Sudhir Jain, Divisional VP-Operations South and West, UB Ltd, said that their group follows the “reduce, recycle and reuse policy”. The group has facilitated a rain water harvesting system in Ganeshnagar, a village in Palghat, Kerala.

No artificial lighting in the day
Guruprakash Sastry, manager, Green Initiatives, Infosys, said that the company adopted a “passive solar architecture” to ensure that the office space was energy efficient.

The basic architectural principles were kept in mind while designing interiors. This kept the place warm in winter and cool in summer.

Enhance ground water levels
S Vishwanath, MD, Biome Solutions shared the example of Mahindra and Mahindra’s unit based in Zaheerabad, AP, which had run out of water a few years ago. At that time, they had two options — shut the unit or enhance ground water levels. They chose the latter. They planted one lakh trees, built water bodies to trap water and channelise it to seep into the ground.

They were successful in raising the water level to 20 feet. By doing this, they helped surrounding villages too.