Wipro's Eco Chapters for employees

BANGALORE, INDIA: Wipro Limited launched Eco chapters for its employees under Eco-eye umbrella. Wipro proposes to have eco-chapters in various locations in India to begin with and eventually overseas as well. It has 9 chapters in India – 3 chapters in Bangalore and a chapter each in Hyderabad, Kochi, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi.

The eco-chapters will build awareness through talks and video sessions on a whole range of green subjects e.g. Energy, Water, Waste, Biodiversity, Climate change. The chapters will also have outreach programs to engage with local NGOs, community organizations and thought leaders in this area. In addition, the chapters will work on mainstream Wipro projects where they can contribute by way of evangelizing, contributing innovative ideas and in implementing some of the solutions that are employee driven.

Anurag Behar, Chief Executive, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering and Corporate Vice President for Social Initiatives, Wipro Limited said, “Ecological sustainability is the defining issue of our times. Both corporations’ and individuals must play a significant role in dealing with this challenge. As an important part of Wipro's ecological sustainability initiatives, we are launching the Eco-eye Eco-Chapters. Wipro has over 95000 employees, and the Eco-chapter's will give the employees a platform for greater ecological awareness, appreciation and action.”

Behar said there is a tremendous response from the employees already and as on date Eco Chapters have more than 1800 registrations in just three chapters. Wipro also launched an intranet portal exclusively for its employees.

Several employees are already active in initiatives such as rain water harvesting, waste recycling, nature study and urban ecology. These will likely become the nucleus for more chapter activity around these themes.

Recently Wipro Limited launched Eco-eye a corporation wide initiative on ecological sustainability. Eco-eye is Wipro’s comprehensive program that drives increasing ecological sustainability in all its operations, as also areas of its influence. The initiative attempts to engage with increasing levels of intensity with all stakeholders – Wipro’s own employees, partners, suppliers, customers and immediate communities.

Wipro has developed a framework for Ecological Sustainability that has five themes and seven goals identified for implementation. The Five themes include being an ecological surplus organization, larger sustainability initiatives beyond Wipro, profitable investments, transparent reporting, risk planning & mitigation.

The company aims to become carbon neutral, water positive organization, achieve defined level of biodiversity footprint, set new standards in recycling waste and  facilitate employees achieve a higher ecological footprint in their personal lives. It also aims to achieve transparency in sustainability reporting and incorporate the expected effects of climate change and other areas of environmental degradation into Wipro’s risk strategy.