Carbon Management Program

This is a carbon offsetting initiative launched last year on 5 November 2008. The idea was to neutralize the carbon footprint that we create on account of our official air travel. Each domestic return flight releases 0.63 tonnes of carbondioxide per head while each international flight (Europe) - 1.81 tonnes - (www.climatecare.org). Accordingly we had decided to plant one sapling for each domestic flight and three saplings for each international return flight (ref: Carbon Neutral, Auroville, Pondicherry).

As per data received from our Travel Dept., during the period November 2008 to June 2009, there were 598 domestic return flights and 791 international flights. This translates into a sapling planting target of 2971 plants.

On 6 July '09, Steria India CSR, children from Steria supported schools along with Isha Foundation volunteers planted 800 saplings at Mambakkam village in the outskirts of Chennai. These included fruit bearing trees like mango, chikoo and gooseberry along with other flowering trees.

A total of 1750 saplings have been planted so far and the balance of 1221 saplings will also be completed by end December’09.

A number of green boxes are kept at various locations in our offices like the Reception area, in the Travel Dept., and at the CSR team area. Contributions received from staff who are travelling by air, helps accelerate the whole process so that at all times our tree planting is able to keep pace with our carbon footprint on account of our air travel.