Igatpuri: The Igatpuri plant of Mahindra Group in Nashik has became India’s first carbon neutral manufacturing facility, and with this, the group has taken the first major step to be carbon neutral by 2040.
The carbon-neutral status has been the result of eight years of consistent work towards sustainability, the company said. It was Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra who had committed to carbon neutral milestone at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September.
“We adopted practices by which we have been able to achieve energy efficiency, and have focused on the use of renewable and alternative sources of energy to minimise our carbon footprint and planted trees to absorb the residual carbon,” Vijay Kalra, CEO, Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Ltd., and chief, manufacturing operations at Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd., said.
The plant for instance has conveyor belts that use gravity either completely or partially, reducing the need of motors. It also has a heat recovery system, which traps the heat generated during the testing of engines and channels it to heat water used for other industrial purposes.
“We have also changed all analog meters to digital. Each machine has a digital meter which provides real-time data about how efficiently it is running. This helps us ensure that no machine is consuming more energy than required,” Nasir Deshmukh, Igatpuri plant head, said.
The other key initiative is the use of cold testing of engines which has led to a 27% reduction in diesel consumption over three years. The plant manufactures diesel engines which are supplied to the group’s vehicle manufacturing plants.
The Igatpuri facility had been chosen to serve as a model plant for sustainability and smart factory. The practices first adopted here have been implemented in other plants across the country.
“As a country we are energy deficient. When it comes to manufacturing operations, energy accounts for almost 70% of our total cost. We need to work on energy efficiency to remain competitive,” Mr. Kalra said.
He said they had identified 1,100 motors to be replaced with more efficient ones across their factories as motors account for the majority of energy costs.
Mahindra is in the process of assessing the next plant which will become carbon neutral.
( The writer visited Igatpuri at the invitation of the company )
