India-Sweden join hands to promote sustainability through green transition

Mumbai: To give further impetus for a sustainable and carbon neutral future, Team Sweden on Wednesday launched India-Sweden Green Transition Partnership (ISGTP), as part of the Indian-Sweden Sustainability and Green Transition Day.

The partnership was launched to build a sustainable future by sharing carbon-neutral business practices and solutions, climate-friendly initiatives, expertise and knowledge related to the green transition.

Under the partnership, six leading Swedish green thought leader companies – Absortech, Alfa Laval, Alleima, Hitachi Energy, KraftPowercon and SKF will work together with India’s leading business houses to enhance pace of green transition across hard to abate industrial sectors including cement, steel and automotive.

India and Sweden have already signed several memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in the Energy, Environment, Urban Development, and other sectors, for India’s commitment toward achieving Net Zero by 2070.  Wednesday marked another step in the cooperation between the two countries.

“An exchange of green technologies and expertise forms the basis of this platform while fostering innovation and co-creation and enhancement of trade and economic collaborations between Indian and Swedish stakeholders” said the official statement.

The event was flagged off in the presence of Jan Thesleff, Ambassador of Sweden to India, Anna Lekvall, Consul General of Sweden to Mumbai, and Cecilia Oskarsson, Trade Commissioner of Sweden in India.

Speaking at the event virtually, Romina Pourmokhtari, Swedish Minister of Climate and Environment, highlighted Sweden’s role as a sustainability and green transition catalyst.

She said the Sustainability, Green transition, and Innovation serve as key focus areas of the ongoing trade and economic relations between India and Sweden. As joint leaders of the Leadership Group of Industry Transition, both countries have committed to drive heavy industries towards carbon Neutrality”

Jan Thesleff, Ambassador of Sweden to India said, ”This platform is an excellent example of how leading Swedish companies in India are joining hands with their Indian counterparts across hard to abate sectors in order to collectively build a strong, green, and clean future”.

Reiterating India’s commitment to engage all stakeholders in achieving its Net Zero goals Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister, of Maharashtra highlighted Sweden’s commitment to partner with India in its green transition journey and said companies have been at the forefront of Industrial growth and investments in Maharashtra.”

“This new engine of green partnership is an additional pledge to our shared responsibility and work to create a climate-neutral future for both nations. I also congratulate the partner agencies of India Sweden Innovations Accelerator Program for their decade long journey of fostering green collaborations among Indian and Swedish companies” he added.

The ISGTP will leverage Sweden’s global collaboration theme “Pioneer the Possible”, which Promotes co-creation of innovative sustainable solutions with India and will also sync with Activities planned under LeadIT initiative.

Another highlight of the partnership is the coming together of industry leaders and experts from India and Sweden for three technical workshops, two of which focusing on cement and iron steel will be hosted in Mumbai on 24 th November 2022. The third workshop on the automotive sector will be held in Pune in December 2022.

The day was also marked with 10-year celebrations of another joint initiative between both countries – India-Sweden Innovations Accelerator (ISIA) program. The Swedish Energy Agency, Business Sweden and CII-Godrej GBC are joint partners in this program which focuses on promoting green energy and energy efficiency collaborations between the two countries.

In the last decade, the program has facilitated entry of 60 Swedish SMEs into India which has in turn established 200 projects and has positively impacted eight sustainability goals for the country.

 Swedish businesses have a significant footprint in India with the operational presence of around 250 companies that are generating over a million jobs directly and indirectly.