Industry leaders pledge near-zero emissions by 2050

Heavy industry players Dalmia Cement (Bharat) and Hindalco are among the companies committed to enhancing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and circular economy across their member companies and supply chains. Other signatories included Siemens Energy India, Thermax, Shell Group of Companies India and Tata Consulting Engineers.

In India, steel, cement, ammonia and petrochemicals industry sectors together account for a whopping 74% of emissions from the manufacturing sector, according to a CEEW report on sustainable manufacturing.

Image: Adam Jones/Flickr

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A coalition of six industry leaders—including Siemens Energy India, Thermax, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), Shell Group of Companies India, Hindalco Industries and Tata Consulting Engineers—signed up an ‘Industry Charter for Near-Zero Emissions by 2050’ in a virtual event at the Climate Week summit in New York.

As founding Signatories of the Charter, these industries committed to enhancing energy efficiency, renewable energy, circular economy across member companies and supply chains, among other measures to contribute in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

The presence of ‘hard to abate’ sectors, namely, cement and aluminium, in the Industry Charter is significant as these sectors would require to shift to breakthrough process technologies that use 100% renewable energy and feedstock. 

Energy thinktank The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) will serve as the Secretariat of this industry coalition.

“Actions taken now will determine the outcome of ‘near-zero emissions by 2050’. After our assessments for electricity sector transition in India, we are excited to take forward the industry transition agenda. This Charter is an important step from Indian industry to voluntarily commit themself to decarbonisation measures and work together in key thematic areas that can make a ‘zero carbon’ future, a reality for India,” said Dr Ajay Mathur, director-general, TERI. 

The Charter Signatories unanimously expressed their intent to make their companies exemplars of low- or zero-carbon technology solutions within their sectors and gradually bring more heavy industry sectors into the Charter’s fold.

As the next step, TERI plans to facilitate discussions among the Charter Signatories to narrow down upon key thematic areas that will be collectively pursued by the industry coalition. Initial proposals and ideas include integrating renewables in the grid, electric mobility and green hydrogen technologies.

 

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