Experiential Learning Session for Sustainability Professionals from Corporates
The One-day Experiential Learning Session was organized by TERI CBS in partnership with Jamshedpur Management Association as part of the Training Program on ‘Operationalizing and Accelerating Sustainability Imperatives and Actions among Businesses in India’ for sustainability professionals that aimed to enhance the knowledge, skills, and capacities of sustainability function-oriented management professionals in order to assist them become sustainability champions and drive long-lasting, sustainable change within and beyond their organization. Attended by more than 20 sustainability practitioners from corporates in and around Jamshedpur, the program provided practical insights and perspectives on imperatives of integrating sustainability in business strategy and operations towards achieving the goal of creating long-term shareholder and stakeholder value.
The day-long Experiential Learning Session at TERI Technology & Demonstration Centre, Gurugram delved into the imperatives of integrating sustainability into the core strategy to leverage the array of unparalleled choices and opportunities posed by the climate and sustainability-related risks and threats. The session, through a mix of interactive session and topical presentations, provided insights on the inter-relationship of financial and non-financial measurements of corporate sustainability, the importance of top management support towards fostering an enabling framework for corporate environmental and social responsibilities in India, along with the significance of 'nexus thinking' for alleviating global water, food and energy pressures.
While the topical presentations provided insights into and enabled the participants understand the key elements required to design an effective sustainability programme at company level, along with sharing how tools such as life cycle assessment can help in product benchmarking; the tour of the TERI Technology Demonstration and R&D Facility provided a peek into actual examples and working models of sustainability in action. Technologies uch as those on energy management, harnessing renewable energy, low-cost and no-cost options for resource efficiency measures, water management, waste minimization and management, low-cost wastewater treatment, use of biotechnology solutions for water and waste management, and so on – provided practical insights on how these technologies can help in integrating sustainability within an organization’s business operations and achieving its sustainability goals.
The session focused on developing and enhancing participants’ understanding on the business case for sustainability, the inter-connectedness of sustainability imperatives and business continuity and long-term viability, along with helping them apply the sustainability lens to business risks and challenges towards optimizing their business strategies. The overall objective of the training program is to enable participants learn and acquire the skills needed to pursue and drive sustainability-aligned business success within their organization and beyond.
