Perspectives From Re-Imagining India: Climate Tech Convening 2021 – Powered by EDF and FICCI

India is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which of course threatens economic development. Critically, India itself recognizes what’s at stake, as most recently demonstrated at COP26. India’s policy emphasis in areas such as renewables, incentives to spur a new EV eco-system, and enhanced regulatory requirements demonstrate both ambition and action.

Over the next decade, India is set to double production of steel, cement, construction and almost every other sector. "There’s a real risk that this will double emissions which will overburden the country’s already creaking health, infrastructure, food and allied eco-systems," notes EDF's Hisham Mundol. "This vicious cycle can however be broken by a virtuous chain of technology and innovation. In many ways, India has all the preconditions, the political will, economic incentives, tech talent, an entrepreneurial spirit, for a new model of development - one that leads to sustainable prosperity.”

With this in mind, last week EDF and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry co-hosted our first India Climate Tech Convening. Govindraj Ethiraj moderated a fantastic panel with some international business and finance leaders; take a look at some of the key takeaways below.?

From Tom Linebarger, CEO, Cummins Inc.: "Our perspective is that climate change is the existential crisis of our time. We are a contributor to that problem, our diesel gen-sets, diesel engines and trucks, our diesel technology generally, has contributed to climate change all over the world. We also think of course it's contributed to economic growth and success and wealth for millions and millions of people. So what we want to do is turn our company towards our mission which is making people's lives better by powering a more prosperous world...to us a prosperous world is one that does have wealth creation, but also has sustainability. So the two together are really the challenge that we're trying to direct all our resources to."

From Emmanuel Lagarrigue, MD, BeyondNetZero: "That idea of either or - should I invest in sustainability or should I invest in something that makes money very well - if you don't invest in sustainability you're probably not going to make money anymore, because you're going to be past the Industrial Revolution which is right at the first inflection point of its growth. India has a huge role to play in that. India is arguably producing the best engineers in the world and there's a very, very strong entrepreneurial culture, so I see no reason why India will not play [a significant role] in this Industrial Revolution, like in the tech revolution 25 years ago."?

From Bejul Somaia, Partner, Lightspeed India: "Someone has to put their hand up to say 'I’m going to start spending my time in the climate area.’; If no one does that, then no capital is going to go there, right? And what's interesting is we're now beginning to see certainly at our firm, but I think, also at some of our peer firms, someone put their hand up and say, 'I'm going to go spend my time here,' and I think that's a very important development because the learning starts. You know we start looking at companies, start seeing more companies, and invariably at some point, at least the way we think about it, is we may make an initial learning investment. That learning investment takes us deeper into the world; we see more, we build deeper networks, and usually, unless the trend line is just wrong, it results in further investments."

The panel discussion was a fascinating look at the role climate technology is playing in spurring innovation to build a low-carbon, prosperous future in India, and the opportunities available for local and global investors. As Ashish Dhawan, Founder of ChrysCapital, remarked, “I think it's become clear that investors, shareholders, management, and board members don't just care about sustainability, they really demanded it. The path to decarbonization has become clearer in the last few years, thanks to innovation.”?

We hope it's the first of many such conversations.