35 entries, 3 judges and a month-long selection process. Mahindra Group continues to honour tradition by celebrating the best in-house sustainability projects across the group

The ‘Most Impactful Sustainability Project Award’ is an annual tradition for over a decade and looks to identify new initiatives and projects across Mahindra Group companies focused on driving the sustainability ‘Planet Positive’ strategy. This year we received 35 project entries from across Mahindra Group companies tackling different aspects of climate and environment.

The final selection was based on 4 key criteria, namely innovation, scale-up opportunity, impact, and alignment to Mahindra’s ‘planet positive’ goals. An initial list of 10 projects were shortlisted by the internal team and then presented by project teams to a 3-member jury comprising Mirik Gogri, part of the promoter family and head for strategy and growth at Aarti Industries, and runs a climate fund called Spectrum impact and is an avid climate investor, philanthropist and scale up specialist; Santhosh Muzumdar, Director - Government Relations and Sustainability, Johnson Controls and Ankit Todi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mahindra Group.

Here are the 5 best projects which stood out this year (in no particular order):

Project name: Electric Power Train Development in Electric Tractor
Team: Advanced Engineering & Technology, Farm Division, AFS
Brief: Aim to reduce emission for tractors via development of an electric power train for tractors as capable and powerful as diesel ones.

Project name: Water Positive for 100% Portfolio
Team: Design & Engineering and Sustainability team, Mahindra Susten
Brief: A phased approach to improve water sustainability right from the design stage and get certified as water positive with 15x more water to source than the water consumed is praiseworthy. This will not just help Susten become a more responsible supplier of RE, but has the ability to move the entire India solar industry in this direction.

Project: Integration of Circularity in Residential Development
Team: Project teams and Sustainability team, Mahindra Lifespaces
Brief: An innovative reuse of construction waste, exemplifying circular economy principles. The project involved processes for improved waste segregation, data recording and tracking, research to use waste innovatively and finally creation of a vendor ecosystem to recycle construction and demolition (C&D) waste. The project will allow Mahindra Lifespaces to be a step ahead of the new C&D waste regulations coming into force.

Project: Efficient BEV Aerodynamics
Team: Product Development, AFS
Brief: The project addresses EV range optimisation with better aerodynamics to help enhance vehicle efficiency, increase range, and reduce energy consumption – a strong enabler for reducing Scope 3 ‘product in use’ emission and extending battery life

Project: Transport Emission Analytics Platform
Team: Mahindra Logistics

Brief: A SaaS-based platform enabling precise emission measurement and reduction for clients. The transparency in the method of calculation and audit-ready report that will help clients disclose such emission to various frameworks - GRI, ISSB, CSRD, DJSI, CDP etc. It also presents a clear business case for effective data management leading to decarbonisation actions.  

Other notable projects include:

Farm Sector: Digitalisation in Tractor Testing and validation
Swaraj Tractors: Water Positive Plant
Farm Sector, MRV:  System level Clutch Test Rig for validating Dry & Wet Clutch project  
Auto Sector, MRV: Smart Cooling Technology
Farm Sector, MRV:  Farmer Centric Sustainable Design & Manufacturing Approach

A special call out to MRV team at Mahindra for having multiple projects focused on sustainability across operations as well as product development. All relevant entries will feature in our sustainability reports as well as be used to demonstrate ‘sustainability in action’ across forums. We are thankful to all the participants and appreciate their efforts in driving positive sustainability actions and look forward to having more entries next year.