8 March 2024
Money Control
Op-eds
She has recently been appointed the co-chair of Business-20’s (a
business dialogue forum) finance and infrastructure vertical, and has her say
in the boardroom of NASDAQ-listed green energy company ReNew. In an exclusive
interview with Moneycontrol, Vaishali Nigam Sinha,
Co-Founder and Chairperson of Sustainability, ReNew, talks to us about India’s
renewable energy push, the perceptions about ESG norms, and women in the clean
energy sector.
Edited excerpts:
In the last two years, the pace of energy transition
has somewhat slowed and we have seen an increase in coal-fired energy. How do
you view this, and what can be done to ensure we do not regress from this path?
Electricity, whether it is clean or dirty, must be available.
India is a large country and it is a democracy. Energy security, accessibility,
and affordability are among the principal guiding factors for our leaders and
rightly so. Given the current global geopolitical issues, the Indian government
needs to ensure that people have electricity.
Coming to India, I think we are on the right track to
ensuring energy transition while ensuring energy access to all. We now have the
ambitious target of setting up 500 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy generation
capacity by 2030. It's a tripling of what we've done till now, in one-third of
the amount of time. The government is now aiming to add 50 GW of renewable
energy (RE) capacity every year. So, I think our leadership is on the right
path concerning its strategy.
India’s progress has not been slow. It's been a lot
better than some of the developed countries.
As co-founder of a business, do you see sustainability
and diversity as elements that are needed for profitability, and not just for
compliance and fundraising? Do you think these are important elements? How do
you view them when you are looking at your own business?
I know you're referring to this whole debate around
ESG — should it be there or not?
I think nobody disagrees that as long as we look at
ESG strategically, and look where it's adding value to shareholders, I think
nobody differs on its need. But sometimes it's used as a greenwashing tool, and
then people step up and say, define what you're doing, can we measure it, and
so on.
So, as co-founder of a renewable energy company, I
feel that ESG and sustainability are very important. I would say these are good
because it's helping us do business in a better way, in a way which is
de-risking us.
All our ESG targets get reported in our risk register.
It also improves our monitoring of risks associated with climate, environment,
and governance issues. It's helping us be a better-run company, which makes for
better profitability. Everybody, including investors, financial institutions, and
regulators is asking for some basic ways in which companies can follow such
practices. For example, you will not be able to achieve your ESG goals if 80
percent of Global Inc is not contributing to net zero goals, and don't have its
own net zero goals. As of now, less than 20 percent of the top 1,000 companies
have such disclosures.
Coming to women in the clean energy space now, do you
think there is a gap when we talk of pay parity and whether the number of women
in this space is enough?
Look, India is now going to put 50 GW of RE capacity
year-on-year. You need a lot of human resources on the ground for this. You
need to skill, and re-skill people. Companies like ours are hiring a lot of
women. In our solar manufacturing plant, we have a women-led segment. Then we
have a couple of RE projects, which are women-led sites. So, these are symbolic
ways in which we are trying to say that there are opportunities for women in
this sector.
But we need a lot more women. We can perhaps also
re-skill women from the coal sector to become technicians in RE projects. Once
women learn how to work they can adapt and do different things. In ReNew, our
Surya project is an example of this. Here, we are getting salt pan workers to
work as solar technicians.
Besides, we are also working with the government and
industry associations to ensure that not just us, but other companies also
skill women so that they increasingly become a part of India’s energy
transition journey.
We need engineers, for which we need more STEM
students — graduates and engineers. We need to also go back a little bit in the
lifecycle of a woman, where we need an enabling environment so that we get more
female engineers in this (clean/green energy) sector. Families should encourage
and push their girls to go there, not just the boys.
We are also working with institutes like IIT to come
up with a very specific renewable energy graduate program.
I'm not proud of the fact that we only have 10 percent
diversity in our management committee. However, we do have 40 percent diversity
and inclusion (D&I) at our board level. It's perhaps the highest, maybe in
the world, and that makes a lot of difference as well.
If you have a goal for the next financial year, what
would that be?
One driver which will feed into financial goals would
be execution, execution, and better execution. I think that's the most critical
thing for us to do.
I would also wish for the interest rate environment to
be better so that we can get better access to capital, which is critical in our
sector. As far as D&I is concerned, I do want to see that from 10 percent,
we at least have 50 percent women in our senior management. I'm also working
very hard to make sure we have more women in middle management and other roles
because women understand the issues around clean energy a lot more as they
tackle these issues at home and in rural areas on a day-to-day basis.
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