Green Startup Pledge (GSP) is a collaboration between ACT For Environment and Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
It will be featured at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Egypt on Nov 12 and at the Bengaluru Tech Summit on Nov 19
Startups that will commit to the cause of GSP will benefit from business-friendly frameworks and a resource platform for implementation
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“Sustainability might not be the top priority of a high-growth business, but it is increasingly becoming important,” Zomato cofounder Deepinder Goyal said as he announced plans to support the Green Startup Pledge (GSP). Goyal, alongside several top Indian unicorn founders and venture capitalists such as Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath, Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal and Accel’s Prashanth Prakash, have come together to back GSP.
According to a report, Green Startup Pledge (GSP), a collaboration between ACT For Environment and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), will be launched at UNFCCC COP27 on November 12, 2022.
Besides featuring at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, BCG will also host the event at the Bengaluru Tech Summit on November 19.
According to BCG, the pledge will act as a global public commitment by a startup that pledges to build sustainable business operations alongside their high-growth businesses. “It will be initiated with Indian startups and aims to scale globally with startups from around the world,” the report added.
In its agenda for the UNFCCC, BCG added that a conversation between stakeholders will illustrate how innovation through advanced analytics can support the fight against the impacts of climate change. It will also present examples of national, state and city governments leading the way for climate adaptation.
Anirban Mukherjee, partner and MD at BCG, said that such an initiative is fundamental to sustainable innovation and will create a common platform for innovators to collaborate and leverage resources tailored to their needs. Besides, startups that will commit to the cause of GSP will benefit from business-friendly frameworks and a resource platform for implementation.
The move comes at a time when several companies are already taking progressive steps towards sustainability despite regulatory oversight. There are no tangible benefits or drawbacks to this, so experts believe that a regulatory push in the form of guidelines to operationalise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting requirements in India would go a long way toward sustainability outcomes.
EY partners Jignesh Thakkar and Versha Goenka, too, believe that startups have a clear advantage over established listed companies and large multinationals since they are comparatively simpler organisations. They have smaller supply chains that will make it easier for startups to implement sustainability principles as best practices.
Several startups today have sustainability as their core business operation, not just to enforce ECG standards. Some examples include D2C footwear brand Neemans, D2C kidswear brand Kidbea, D2C clothing brand Greendigo and nearly 400 Indian startups working in the cleantech segment in India.
A handful of funds have also been set up for the climate tech segment. Some names include the climate tech-focussed accelerator programme, ClimAct (a partnership between Merak Ventures and Huddle), VC fund Climate Angels’ syndicate fund, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Youth CoLab and more.
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