Over the past two years there has been a significant awakening on the impact of industry towards climate change. This awakening has been led by campaigners such as Al Gore and many others who have even been recognised with the award of a Nobel prize in end-2007. Several groups have sprung up to take up the cause of climate change and, in general, there has been an awakening that human kind just cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere as it has been doing for the past 100 years and more.
 
In India also the Government has set up a mechanism to monitor the impact of climate change and also to suggest ways and means on how this important aspect can be dealt through legislation, if necessary. However, it is possible that governmental action will be slow and cumbersome and not without debate and consequent delays.
 
A Steering Committee of senior Tata managers has been set up to guide the movement.  The Steering Committee has identified “champions” in each of our major companies, and they constitute the Working Group. The working group meets regularly to exchange experiences, best practices through which Tata group companies can benefit. In addition, it was felt that in the TQMS structure there should be a group who would be solely devoted towards spreading the message, conducting programmes, training necessary staff etc., in the field of climate change. Appropriate persons were recruited for this Climate Change (CC) group (largely from our member companies).  
 
The next step for the Steering Committee was to plan out a course of action which would accelerate the understanding of the climate change process in our group companies and also to arrive at time bound mitigation processes. After considering several options, it was decided to estimate the current carbon footprint in the five Tata companies who contribute more than 80% towards the carbon emissions of the group. These companies are: Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals and TCS.
 
Once the carbon footprints of these five companies were established and we had a more correct picture of the current situation, then a mitigation process would be taken forward.  
 
An appropriate number of executives from the five large companies have also been trained so that they could, in turn, spread out to the remaining large number of our smaller companies in the Tata group to push these programmes forward in those companies.  
 
Deliberations within the Climate Change steering committee over the past few months have convinced us that climate change is an important issue for the Tata Group and could become a source of competitive advantage. Tata group therefore wishes to assume a leadership position in line with  its  group aspirations, culture and ethics.