Rajiv Tikoo The Financial Express and Emergent Ventures India launch a survey to map the greening of businesses, highlight success stories and come up with recommendations for best practices It's set to become a symbol of green businesses in India. On World Environment Day, June 5, The Financial Express and Emergent Ventures India (EVI), a climate change mitigation advisory firm, launched fe-EVI Green Business Survey to map the greening of Indian businesses, highlight success stories and come up with recommendations for following best practices. "The topline is that the fe-EVI green business survey will assess preparedness of Indian businesses on climate change, which is a big threat faced by us today,' said Ashutosh Pandey, practice head, Emergent Ventures India. "Everything else flows from there.' A first of its kind attempted by a business daily, the fe-EVI survey shall seek out Companies that follow environment management practices that go beyond corporate social responsibility initiatives like planting trees in the neighbourhood. The initiative has already drawn support across industry chambers. Chandrajit Banerjee, director-general of CII, said it can catalyse positive change. Such survey findings are discussed and critically examined in chambers and boardrooms. "Surveys can be a good resource for learning about good practices followed by others,' he added. The survey will map initiatives cutting across businesses, sectors and geographical locations. Arun Kumar, associate director, KPMG Advisory Services, said, "Companies in India are realising that being green makes business sense and they are very keen to do things that can improve their bottomline. Indian Companies have done a lot to improve their energy efficiency, water use efficiency and other resource use efficiency.' For example, some Companies are following the obvious route and taking simple and cost effective steps like changing light bulbs and undertaking water harvesting, while the more progressive Companies are resorting to out-of-the-box thinking and going in for installation of clean technology, which may be capital intensive initially. DS Rawat, secretary-general of Assocham, felt that more and more Companies are today inclined towards setting up manufacturing units that cause the least environmental degradation. "They may require superior technology that is costly in the first place, but it turns out to be profitable eventually.' Mapping such businesses in the first place can prove helpful, he added. The fe-EVI initiative follows the global best practices. Such third party reporting has led to green businesses being celebrated for following low-carbon path and turning green profitably. There are numerous examples of global leaders not only saving millions of dollars by making use of local resources, improving energy efficiency and recycling bye products, but also innovating to come up with new products and services to tap into emerging green Markets. These are the businesses that are not only profitable, but also environmentally sustainable. These are the businesses that are ranked not only separately on bourses, but have special exchanges set up for them globally. The survey will track top 300 such businesses to assess their awareness and perception about green concerns and how some of them are internalising sustainability strategies in their operations and policies profitably. The survey will help Companies rate themselves vis-