Page 64 - ENGINEERING REVIEW APRIL 2022 DIGITAL MAGAZINE

INSIGHT
#AIR COMPRESSOR

WORLD EARTH DAY 2022 –

ELGi’s Commitment to Sustainability

Close to the ‘World Earth Day’ ELGi ruminates on the significance of this annual day celebration, and reiterates its
commitment to sustainable development. “We are looking beyond the traditional linear economy and the current
take-make-waste extractive industrial model to weave in circularity across our processes, aiming to redefine
growth and focus on positive, society-wide benefits,” says ELGi’s managing director Jairam Varadaraj.

The theme for World Earth Day impact on the environment while ensuring
2022 is #Invest in our planet. At ELGi, we collectively do our bit to reduce our
our commitment to addressing climate carbon footprint across the world.
change comprises several low carbon
initiatives coupled with a longer-term Q. What are the various green
sustainability roadmap. For one, we’ve manufacturing practices you follow
undertaken initiatives focused on reducing in your plant/s?
the carbon footprint of our manufacturing We began mapping our carbon dioxide
facilities and offices, together with a emissions over a decade ago. We realised
clearly defined focus on building energy- that about 85% of the emissions from our
efficient products that enable companies manufacturing units in India emanated
around the globe to reduce their carbon from three sources: electricity, high-speed
footprint. Aside, our employees are our diesel (HSD) equipment, and waste sand
greatest advocates for contributing to and generation.
promoting our company’s sustainability Having identified the sources, we
DR. JAIRAM VARADARAJ, focus. And we vehemently believe that defined sustainable strategies to contain
Managing Director, ELGi Equipments Ltd. individual action is a prerequisite for and reduce the emissions. At first
collective action while also influencing count, we realised we were consuming

Q. What’s the significance of ‘World others’ behaviour. Taking our philosophy approximately 12 million units of
Earth Day’ and how are you going to forward, on the 50th anniversary of electricity annually at our manufacturing
celebrate it this time? World Earth Day, 2020, we introduced plants. The obvious question was: how
The ravages from the massive oil spill off the ELGi ‘Steps for Change’ program, do we reduce consumption? It was
the coast of Santa Barbara in California which encourages our employees to take challenging to manually capture data or
led to the conception of the first Earth environmental action and be socially even continuously monitor the plants
Day in the 1970s. A watershed moment responsible. With this purpose-driven for increased power consumption with
indeed as people, perhaps for the first program, every ELGi employee across human effort. In 2017, we replaced our
time, came together and shared concern the globe has committed to undertaking traditional energy meters with smart
for our deteriorating environment. Fast a small but significant environment- meters. This enabled the latter to sense
forward to the present, where we’re on a friendly initiative that positively impacts loads based on amperage (strength of
rollercoaster ride to surpassing the global our environment and minimizes our an electric current in amperes), sense
warming limit of + 1.5-degree (Celsius, carbon footprint across the world. The whether the load is less or the machines
or 2.7-degrees Fahrenheit). Unless we program has seen our employees explore are idle, and distribute the load optimally.
make changes to our lifestyles, reduce emission-reducing lifestyle changes, This exercise resulted in savings of
dependency on fossil fuel consumption, plastic pollution action, university and about 1.5 million units of electricity per
extend access to electricity, improve school teaching, tree planting, local clean- year.In 2018, we introduced an Energy
energy efficiency and increase the use of ups or even switching to a more plant- Management System (EnMS) at our Air
alternative fuels. based diet; all of this resulting in a positive Compressor Plant (ACP), our state-of-

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