Coca-Cola, FICCI and UN HABITAT partners together to build sustainability

FICCI Environment Committee, UN HABITAT and Coca-Cola hosted a special event in New Delhi today, addressed by Dr Joan Clos, Under Secretary General of United Nations and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, on "Towards Sustainable Habitat- A Collaborative Approach."

The talk by Dr Clos, who is on his first official visit to India as ED - UNHABITAT, was followed by a high level panel discussion with Dr Joan Clos, Mr. Atul Singh, President and CEO, Coca-Cola India & Chairman, FICCI Environment Committee, Dr Pradipto Ghosh, Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment, and Chairman of FICCI Climate change task force and Mr. Mahesh Babu, Managing Director, IL&FS Environment, and Co-Chairman of FICCI Climate change task force discussing corporate sustainability and the development of a collaborative approach towards finding solutions for a more sustainable habitat. The speakers also discussed what it means to imprint sustainability within the core decision making of an organization.

Addressing a diverse audience of opinion makers, NGOs, members of civil society and corporate, Dr. Joan Clos said, "UN-HABITAT has been addressing the problems of water and sanitation for more than two decades. The Water for Asian Cities Programme as a collaborative initiative of the UN-HABITAT, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Governments of Asian countries was launched in 2003. UN-HABITAT stands committed to develop a framework for long-term partnership to pursue common development objectives and implement partnership projects to improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation in Asia, Africa and Latin American and the Caribbean. I am happy to note that the collaboration with Coca-Cola has brought in more partners and has also helped in leveraging more resources. It is important that we continue to work towards building these partnerships and strengthen them."

Speaking on this occasion, Atul Singh, President and CEO, Coca-Cola India and Chairman FICCI Environment Committee said, "Sustainability is important from a long term vision of both the organization and the planet that we live in. It remains within the core of our actions as each step we take has the ability to affect the communities we operate in. The hallmark of our collaborative approach is the partnership that we have forged with UN-HABITAT and what we are now expanding to cover other parts of the world. It is based on the same vision and commitment to sustainability and we hope to positively impact the people, the communities and all the other stakeholders."

Dr Pradipto Ghosh, Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Chairman of FICCI Climate change task force said, "It is important for like-minded organizations to operate in a shared environment to take forward the agenda of sustainability. Each organization needs to look towards developing partnerships to maximize impact through collaboration and sharing."

Mr Mahesh Babu, MD of IL&FS and Co-Chairman of FICCI Climate change task force expressed that, "most successful sustainability initiatives around the world have their roots in collaboration with partners who have a strong alignment in their vision and mission. The collaborative approaches will then need to shape business and societal responses to the world's most urgent sustainability issues".

At the event, a compendium titled 'Ripple to a Wave' was also released by the Dr Joan Clos, Atul Singh, Mahesh Babu and Dr. PradiptoGhose. This comprehensive compendium stories the journey of multi-lateral, multi-location partnership between Coca-Cola and UN-HABITAT as it evolved from one region in India to include many countries around the world. Apart from detailing the concurrently important themes of water and sanitation, itlists initiatives jointly taken along with other partners, and their impact on the beneficiaries. The compendium also captures the challenges of putting together a diverse set of partners into a collaborative framework and the learning derived from it.

During the course of discussion sanitation conditions in rural schools was also discussed and how it impacts the education as a whole in the country. The recently launched initiative Support My School jointly launched by UN-HABITAT and Coca-Cola along with other partners such as Pearson Foundation, Sulabh International was talked about for the impact that it has been making since the launch.