Campus sustainable energy management initiatives at Goa Institute of Management

Abstract

On 31 July 2020, Dr Ajit Parulekar, director at Goa Institute of Management (GIM), Goa, India, was trying to look over the past few years to understand how much they had achieved in terms of sustainability, specifically with respect to energy management at GIM, and how his agenda of transitioning into a carbon neutral institute could be taken forward. Three years back, in 2017, when he took charge as the institute’s director, he decided to make the institute one of the most sustainable in the country. He believed that environmental sustainability should be a critical dimension for corporate decision-making and that business schools could play an important role in training future managers for this transition, especially in a developing country like India. He wanted his institute to take the initiative to develop expertise in this field and lead by example. The fact that sustainability was very close to his heart, made this one of the essential agendas in his tenure as the head of the institute. During an interview, he said, “Every additional day with environmentally unfriendly operations had costs for the planet and all living beings on it, and hence it was imperative to take decisions on this aspect without delays. We do not have the luxury of time.”