Despite persistent economic and geopolitical challenges, the consensus among participants was clear: sustainability is integral to the success of businesses in today’s evolving business landscape.
Tanmaye Seth, Director at Aquagri Processing Private Ltd, highlighted the sustainability potential of seaweed — macroscopic algae grown in marine and coastal waters — cultivation. “Aqua agriculture was started in 2008 with a singular goal to promote seaweed cultivation in India and promote sustainable livelihoods for the coastal communities. About 75% of our workforce comprises women. We were born out of an initiative that transformed into a sustainable enterprise and now we process the seaweed into sustainable products for agriculture, food processing, and animal and human nutrition. And we’re also working on bioplastics and biopolymer applications.”
He said seaweed’s carbon sequestration potential is a powerful tool against climate change. So this is not just a viable livelihood option for coastal communities, but also aligns with global sustainability goals and reduces the need for chemical fertilisers, he said. “Seaweed is an exciting crop that is grown in the ocean and is cultivated like land agriculture, but it’s accessible to people who don’t own any land and who don’t have resources. Also, among the rural community, the lowest income households are on our coasts. So this is a viable livelihood vocation for them,” he said.
Calling seaweed a wonder crop, Seth said his firm works on a certain type of seaweed (carpa phicus) which when dried is carbon dioxide 30% by weight. So it has 30% sequestration potential. “We then make organic biostimulants for agriculture, which, in simpler words, is like an organic fertiliser, when that’s used by farmers, it reduces chemical fertiliser usage by 25%.”
The New Delhi-based entrepreneur emphasised the UN’s backing of seaweed cultivation as a key activity for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). In terms of challenges, he said rising seawater temperatures and regulatory barriers continue to affect this segment. However, efforts are underway to educate industry stakeholders and create deep-sea infrastructure.Garima Bharadwaj, another participant at the panel discussion and co-founder of Mumbai-based technology firm Enlite, said sustainability is a key enabler for business success. Explaining how her firm is dedicated to creating impactful products to help create sustainable and decarbonised buildings, she added that Enlite’s groundbreaking approach focuses on energy inefficiencies in commercial real estate. The company’s unique solution, Know Your Building, is a patent-pending innovation, equipped with wireless hardware and an AI-enabled platform, that empowers real estate owners and occupiers to manage their building operations more efficiently and effectively.According to Garima, approximately 30% of energy is wasted in commercial real estate space, amounting to $60 billion annually. “The average energy that the companies in the US spend on commercial real estate could power about seven years of energy requirements of Great Britain. Our revolutionary solution, Know Your Building, serves as a cloud-native building management system, significantly reducing energy wastage and GHG emissions. The results of our efforts over the last 12 months are clear — a massive reduction of 2 billion kg in GHG emissions, steering us towards greener, decarbonised building,” she added.
