Laying down the green carpet

SEBI has mandated top 1,000 listed companies in India by market capitalization to make filings as per the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting from FY23. In line with this, Thomas Cook India & SOTC Travel have tied up with LTIMindtree to launch ‘Green Carpet’ – a global platform for enterprises to manage business travel emissions.

TT Bureau

Global warming and its resultant impact on the environment and mankind have forced countries across the world to take concrete measures to curb the damage and preserve the future – and India is at the forefront of this movement. SEBI has mandated the top 1,000 listed companies in India by market capitalization to make filings as per the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) from FY23. Coming against this backdrop, Thomas Cook (India) and its group company SOTC Travel have announced their partnership with global technology consulting and digital solutions company LTIMindtree to launch ‘Green Carpet’ – a global platform to monitor and manage business travel emissions.

Green Carpet is built on the combined prowess of Thomas Cook & SOTC’s expertise in the travel industry, LTIMindtree’s Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) consulting and digital solutions capabilities and also leverages the global expertise of Fairfax Digital Services (a Fairfax company). A SaaS-based platform, Green Carpet is designed to address specific concerns faced by organizations, helping them capture, monitor, analyze and reduce their carbon emissions from business travel. It offers real-time insights related to Scope 3 emissions and helps them reduce their ESG reporting costs.

Madhavan Menon, Chairman & Managing Director, Thomas Cook (India), said, “Under its G20 Presidency, India has set ambitious ESG goals, and India Inc. has been called on to implement SEBI’s BRSR mandate starting FY23. The need for a trustworthy partner to provide accuracy and speed in reporting is hence an imperative. At Thomas Cook & SOTC, our leadership in the travel sector formed the basis of our partnership with LTIMindtree – a technology solutions provider. Green Carpet, therefore, not only embodies this potent partnership of leaders, but also leverages the global expertise of Fairfax Digital Services to collectively empower enterprises with the ability to seamlessly monitor and manage business travel emissions and drive their net zero goals.”

Sudhir Chaturvedi, President and Executive Board Member, LTIMindtree, said, “ESG has become a board-level priority for nearly all organisations, especially in cognizance of India’s ambitious goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2070. To achieve this goal, organisations are investing in initiatives and infrastructure that will enable them to track, reduce and report carbon footprint seamlessly. The Green Carpet will help climate-conscious clients to comply with regulatory expectations. It will accelerate their net-zero journey through data-driven engineering solutions, cloud computing data analytics, and enable business decisions towards sustainable future.”

Sanjay Tugnait, CEO, Fairfax Digital Services, said: “In this the year of India’s G20 Presidency, as a member of the G20 Startup 20 Task Force on Sustainability, under the leadership of Dr Chintan Vaishnav, I am delighted we have built this digital solution that India can showcase among the G20 nations.”

‘Green Carpet’ enables:

• Simplified data capture & analysis of travel emissions with real time dashboards
• Adherence to BRSR and aligned to global audit requirements
• Swift and easy integration with current business travel platforms of corporates
• Advanced AI & ML to provide analytics & recommendations
• Decision making to drive enterprise net-zero goals