Wipro makes its customer conference carbon neutral

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services division of Wipro Limited, hosted the first ever carbon neutral event by an Indian IT company at Florida recently, by making its annual customer forum event, Mandala 2008, completely carbon neutral.

Carbon Neutral refers to offsetting carbon-dioxide emissions that are produced by an organisation or an event with investment in technologies that reduce future carbon-dioxide emissions.

The sustainable development project for offsetting carbon emissions from this event was for Energy Efficiency of Farmers Cooperative. Wipro's investments in verified emission reductions (VERs) will go towards this project for the farmers' cooperative through purchase of voluntary emission reduction from UNFCCC accredited agencies.

Wipro used the services of consulting firm Emergent Ventures India (EVI) to conduct a detailed carbon footprinting audit of the event to quantify the carbon emissions that needed to be offset to attain carbon neutrality.

Wipro says its  audit was in compliance with ISO 14064 guidelines to ensure that all possible sources of emissions were identified and accounted for including emissions from delegates air travel, hotel stay and airport related travelling.

"Mandala, Wipro's customer forum, was the right platform for us to look at all aspects of an event through a green lens and embrace climate friendly alternatives wherever possible," says Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer, Wipro Technologies. "Making this event carbon neutral by strictly following ISO 14064 guidelines for green house gases accounting, strengthens our commitment for climate mitigation."

The company says it will extend its carbon neutral initiatives to other customer events in the future.