June 18, 2024
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
In line with its commitment to responsible business practices, DBS Bank India has partnered with Climes, a leading climate finance company, to make all BusinessClass foundED events carbon neutral. foundED, hosted in partnership with Headstart Network Foundation, is the bank’s flagship initiative to celebrate and encourage innovative entrepreneurship. foundED aims to educate entrepreneurs through a series of networking sessions with startup founders, venture capitalists, incubators, and other ecosystem players.
This partnership allows the bank to measure the carbon emissions from each foundED event using Climes’ carbon neutral event calculator. Once the emissions are calculated, DBS Bank India will neutralise them by encouraging event attendees to select the carbon avoidance and removal projects they want the bank to support. Attendees can choose from reforestation, agroforestry, and climate-smart agriculture projects in India. During the event, Climes will display real-time data on participant engagement. The partnership kicked off with the Mumbai edition of foundED, with plans to integrate this feature for events in other cities.
Commenting on the partnership, Shoma Narayanan, Managing Director, and Head of Group Strategic Marketing & Communications at DBS Bank India, said, “DBS Bank India continues to lead by example by adopting responsible business operations and making a conscious effort to manage our environmental footprint. As purpose-led and innovative businesses are key to tackling pressing climate issues, integrating such partners into our operations allows us to mitigate the carbon footprint of our events. This also gives us a platform to educate our attendees, partners, and customers on making climate-conscious choices.”
Anirudh Gupta, co-founder of Climes, added, “We are pleased to partner with a Gen-C (Generation-Climate) champion like DBS Bank India. The bank is setting a benchmark with its holistic approach to sustainability. We focus on climate action by collaborating with businesses and helping them adopt our tech-based products to effectively manage their environmental impact. Our goal is to make sustainability an engaging and rewarding experience for all stakeholders, accelerating our collective climate impact.”
As a different kind of bank, DBS focuses on redesigning and rebuilding for a better world. The partnership with Climes is part of the bank’s wider efforts to integrate sustainability principles across operations. To address its carbon, energy, water, and waste footprint, the bank has developed a four-lever approach to systematically drive progress. This includes reducing resource consumption, generating renewable energy, purchasing green products and energy, and utilising Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and carbon offsets. Since 2017, the bank has expanded its renewable energy production in India with solar installations across 13 locations in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, adding over 278 kW of capacity.