Green initiatives and the profit motive are incompatible-that has been an unwritten law of the corporate world. However, city-based Cummins Generator Technologies’ (CGT) have turned this common wisdom on its head.

CGT’s new plant at Ranjangaon, incorporates a range of environment-friendly features, right from the construction materials to waste disposal. What is unique about the initiative is that while many other companies have ‘gone green’ on a piece-meal basis, such as the disposal of waste, or in the selection of construction material for their buildings, CGT’s is the first plant to have gone the whole hog.

“For us, in corporate life, ‘green’ is a societal obligation” said Pradip Bhargava, MD, CGT, “ If long-term sustainability is a question mark in the context of environmental and climate changes, it has to be addressed by industry as a key member of civic society.” So the plant on the 11-acre plot has a 25 square metre wind tower, that provides natural ventilation and cooling for the 50,000 sq feet shop floor. Use of glasswool to construct the roof makes sure that maximum use is made of the available daylight. In fact, artificial lights are not used during daytime on the shop floor. And when employees forget and leave lights on, the automated building management system switches them off after a certain period. Even the taps, if left turned on, are turned off by this system. Some of the machinery runs not on electricity, but on alternate energy sources like compressed air.

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