Spiritual Guidance
What compels established leaders to pivot from the quantifiable certainties of technology to the evolving metrics of environmental stewardship? Jangoo Dalal, a veteran of three decades in tech leadership at Cisco, Avaya, and E-link, made this transition. This shift was not a strategic response to a burgeoning market. A personal encounter with an unseen environmental reality catalysed it.
Dalal's path to sustainability deepened in the early 2000s. His family's relocation from Bangalore, India, to Singapore, a city renowned for its cleanliness, presented an unexpected paradox. His young son, previously healthy in Bangalore, began suffering chronic viral colds and breathing issues within a month of moving to Singapore. This defied intuitive understanding. Singapore was perceived as a healthier environment. The prevalent assumption about a city's environmental quality did not align with his son’s declining health. The discrepancy between public perception and personal reality raised questions.
Consulting a leading pediatrician revealed the unseen culprit: the constant, pervasive use of air conditioning. The closed, circulating air in homes, schools, buses, and public transport meant continuous exposure to recirculated viruses, offering no respite for the respiratory system to heal and improve. This stark contradiction of a "clean" city inadvertently creating health issues through its climate control infrastructure became an unexpected "tipping point" for Dalal. He began a deeper inquiry into how environmental factors, often hidden, directly affect human well-being. The incident made him question: Is what appears clean healthy, or are there hidden systems contributing adverse effects? This personal vulnerability ignited a driven professional mission and transformed an abstract interest in environmental issues into an imperative for action.
The conventional narrative of a career shift often focuses on market dynamics or professional ambition. Dalal's experience, however, underscores the influence of personal resonance. His deep-seated interest in environmental issues, present even during his corporate career, gained an undeniable force through his family encounter with a seemingly paradoxical aspect of human-designed nature. This individual's "passion about the planet, about sustainability" became a core driver for his entrepreneurial aspirations. He recognized the opportunity to combine this passion with his strength in delivering business outcomes for large and mid-sized enterprises. This combination became central to his new venture.
The realization that environmental impact is not always overt, but can manifest subtly and still critically, reshaped Dalal's understanding. It highlighted the need for a more nuanced perspective on "cleanliness" and "health." This deeper appreciation for the unseen mechanisms of environmental influence propelled him to seek solutions that address underlying systemic issues, rather than apparent symptoms.
"I always had a personal interest in environmental and sustainability issues, and over time, through a few personal experiences, those got a little stronger."
The Internet's Echo
Jangoo Dalal draws a parallel between the internet's early evolution and the current sustainability state. His experience from the mid-nineties, witnessing the internet's nascent stages at companies like Cisco, informs his perspective on ESG today. The internet began slowly. It then rapidly ballooned into omnipresence, becoming as fundamental as air. Dalal observes sustainability on a similar, albeit earlier, curve. He has a firm conviction that it will soon reach a stage where it is taken for granted, much like the internet. This forecast incorporates what he understands is necessary for human and business survival.
This analogy extends beyond growth patterns. It encompasses the inevitable rationalization within emerging markets. The early internet boom saw numerous companies jump into the space. On this battlefield, few survived. Dalal points to Yahoo, once a market leader, now overshadowed by Google, which began as a smaller entity. This evolution is inherent to industry development. He predicts a similar dynamic in the ESG and sustainability sector. Many entities are entering the field due to perceived opportunity. However, only those capable of consistent innovation and value delivery endure.
This foresight is derived from empirical observation of market cycles. It raises a critical question for any emerging field: Beyond the initial gold rush, what truly enables long-term survival and relevance? Dalal's historical perspective offers a sharp lens on the present. The current proliferation of sustainability initiatives will consolidate. The market will reward genuine impact and robust solutions over time. This analytical rigor, shaped by the tech sector's volatility and rapid change, prepared him for the complexities of the sustainability landscape.
The initial phase of slow evolution for the internet involved gradually realizing its potential. Similarly, sustainability is now experiencing this measured development before its anticipated rapid acceleration. This period allows for foundational practices to take root, but also for entrants who may not possess the necessary long-term vision or capabilities. Dalal's warning about market rationalization is a direct application of his past observations. He saw major names from the early internet era disappear. This historical precedent informs his current outlook on the crowded sustainability landscape. The ability to innovate and consistently deliver value will differentiate the lasting players from those merely capitalizing on a trend. This disciplined perspective is crucial for any business navigating a rapidly changing environment. It underscores that sustainability is not a static concept but a dynamic, evolving domain.
"Sustainability will soon reach that stage. Otherwise, humans won't survive. Businesses won't survive."
From Data Capture
to Systemic Insight
"When you actually go to people who matter within the enterprise, they don't really have much of a grip and sense of this whole concept of ESG and sustainability."
Integrating sustainability into corporate operations presents a fundamental challenge: how does an enterprise move beyond superficial data collection to achieve genuine, systemic insight? Jangoo Dalal observed a critical disconnect among senior corporate leaders. They understood the broad implications of ESG and climate risk, but lacked a practical framework for operationalizing these concepts within their businesses. Existing solutions often focused on basic data capture, failing to provide the actionable intelligence needed for strategic transformation. This gap revealed an opportunity: to create a comprehensive "solution" that transcended mere software.
Dalal's approach positions an external partner not as a temporary consultant, but as a "sustainability Sherpa". This metaphor describes an intimate, continuous partnership throughout a complex journey. Unlike traditional consulting, which delivers project-based mandates and then disengages, the Sherpa model involves walking alongside the client, providing ongoing guidance and support. This continuous engagement is crucial for absorbing operational data and translating abstract sustainability concepts into tangible value. It transforms a transactional relationship into a recurring journey, embedding sustainability deeply within the client's operational fabric.
The essence of this partnership lies in shifting the focus from mere compliance to strategic integration. The objective is not simply to deliver a report or complete a single project. It enables the enterprise to improve its sustainability performance consistently and derive tangible value from the process. Dalal observed that corporate captains were exposed to ideas from the World Economic Forum about climate risk but struggled to relate these high-level discussions to their specific business contexts. The absence of clarity on how to adapt and adopt sustainability practices left decision-makers without a clear path.
This method directly addresses that confusion. It provides a practical mechanism for companies to "get their hands and arms around this concept of sustainability". It facilitates the adoption of sustainable practices and aims to create direct outcomes and value for the businesses themselves. The approach acknowledges that internal capacity within many enterprises is insufficient to leverage sustainability software alone fully. Therefore, a supportive team that assists in training and problem-solving becomes integral to the solution. This dual model of technology and expert support ensures that the enterprise is not only collecting data but is actively engaging with it to solve problems and enhance its overall sustainability posture. It is a continuous process of learning and adaptation, where external expertise complements internal development to foster a more resilient and responsible business ecosystem.
The Board's Fiduciary Duty
"Even ESG data can give you business outcomes, business value which people don't think about."
Organizations often underestimate the pervasive complexity of ESG implementation. The transformation of raw data into tangible business value remains a critical challenge. Jangoo Dalal highlights a common misconception: companies frequently delegate ESG as a task to a single person or department. They fail to grasp its multi-departmental, multi-functional nature. Data required for compliance, encompassing emissions, energy, waste, social metrics, and governance, resides across disparate organizational silos. These include different factory units, functional heads, and various stakeholders. This inherent fragmentation complicates data collection. Furthermore, staff responsible for providing this data often already manage demanding full-time roles, rendering additional requests a significant burden.
Dalal emphasizes that organizations frequently embark on the ESG journey without clearly charting desired outcomes. He stresses the importance of clearly defined goals from the outset. This ensures that data collection serves a strategic purpose beyond mere reporting. His approach involves mapping the organization and engaging more people. It focuses on generating enthusiasm for the sustainability journey. Securing "tone from the top" is crucial. This comprehensive engagement establishes proper data flows. This systematic approach allows for demonstrating tangible value, transforming data into actionable business intelligence.
Consider a manufacturing company producing steel products with multiple facilities. Dalal's team analyzed energy intensity across these factories. If one factory's energy intensity was 1.2 times another's for the same product, it immediately signaled a "low-hanging fruit" for process and cost optimization. This insight transformed ESG data from a compliance burden into a tool for internal operational improvement. This demonstrates that ESG metrics, when viewed through a business lens, can uncover efficiencies and cost savings that directly impact the bottom line.
Another illustration comes from a healthcare company with a chain of testing laboratories. By systematically measuring different types of waste across its facilities, Dalal's team mapped waste generation over several months. They then calculated waste intensity per rupee of revenue. Significant variances emerged, with some centers showing 40% higher waste intensity than others. Dalal points out that waste does not start as waste but originates as something useful. Higher waste intensity signals a broken internal process, a problem entirely within organizational control. These discoveries immediately captured senior management's attention.
These examples illustrate a critical point: When analyzed from a "business angle," ESG data yields not only compliance reports but also actionable insights that drive cost benefits and operational efficiency. This approach makes the journey easier for the enterprise and its internal champions because it shows tangible value. The challenge lies in shifting perception. It transforms ESG from a regulatory obligation to a strategic asset.
The Burden of Choice
The fundamental role of a corporate board in the age of sustainability transcends traditional financial oversight. Jangoo Dalal articulates that a board's primary function is to safeguard its fiduciary responsibility to the company's external stakeholders. This extends beyond shareholders to encompass society and the resources a company draws upon. If a company utilizes capital, money, or societal resources, the board is responsible for ensuring these are optimally used and not misused. This redefines the scope of their fiduciary duty to include the community, environment, and planet.
Beyond this core responsibility, a key role of the board is to maintain a strategic distance from day-to-day operations. From this vantage point, they identify the enterprise's overarching risks and opportunities. Central bankers and global forums universally recognize climate change and ESG as among the top few risks and opportunities for any enterprise. Therefore, when boards marry their fiduciary responsibility to external stakeholders and resources with their mandate to oversee dangers and opportunities, ESG becomes a significant strategic imperative.
Companies with boards actively engaged in ESG typically demonstrate better movement and traction. Dalal advocates for boards to embrace their fiduciary role as custodians for external stakeholders and resources. This perspective transforms ESG from a compliance checklist into a cornerstone of corporate strategy. It mandates regular performance reports on resource management and external stakeholder impact. It also compels consideration of risks posed by extreme climate events and weather situations for the enterprise's continuous success.
The awareness of supply chain responsibility further reinforces this. Regulatory pushes, such as India's BRSR mandates and global supply chain demands, compel even smaller entities to integrate ESG. This raises the bar across the entire value chain, forcing companies to think beyond their immediate operations and understand their broader ecological and social footprint. For a mid-sized company, this commitment must originate from the very top, from the promoter or CEO, as their nimbleness allows for faster implementation once convinced.
Ultimately, Jangoo concludes that sustainability is not merely an external pressure. It is an internal realization of interconnectedness, driving strategic advantage and long-term viability. A board's choice to actively integrate ESG recognizes this fundamental shift. It demonstrates foresight that moves beyond short-term financial gains to encompass the holistic health and survival of the business within its broader ecosystem.
"The Board's basic role is to be responsible.”
What I learned from Jangoo Dalal
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Personal experiences, even seemingly minor ones, can profoundly catalyze professional shifts into critical fields like sustainability.
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The evolution of the internet offers a predictive model for the sustainability industry, signaling a coming period of rapid growth and subsequent market rationalization.
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Effective ESG implementation demands a "Sherpa" approach: continuous, integrated guidance that goes beyond one-time consulting to embed sustainability strategically within an organization.
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ESG data, when viewed through a "business angle" beyond mere compliance, can reveal significant opportunities for cost optimization and operational efficiency.
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A corporate board's fiduciary responsibility extends inherently to external stakeholders like the environment and society, making ESG a strategic, not just a moral, imperative.
Comprehension Challenge: Jangoo Dalal
Philosophy
Jangoo Dalal's journey illustrates how a profound personal realization can reshape a professional trajectory, especially in understanding that "cleanliness" or "sustainability" is not always what it appears to be on the surface. His experience with his son in Singapore revealed unseen environmental impacts hidden within seemingly advanced systems. This challenge tests the ability to identify and address such hidden, systemic issues, even when facing immediate, visible pressures.
The Scenario
Imagine 'Arjun,' the operations head of a successful textile manufacturing plant in Tiruppur, known for its "eco-friendly" product line. The plant has invested heavily in visible sustainability initiatives: solar panels on the roof, a prominent water recycling plant that processes all wastewater into visibly clear output, and a robust community engagement program that sponsors local clean-up drives. These initiatives generate excellent public relations and satisfy immediate regulatory checks. The plant is considered a model for sustainable manufacturing in the region.
However, Arjun’s team discovered a less visible issue during a recent internal review. The plant's air filtration system, while meeting all current emission standards, is found to subtly alter the local micro-climate around the facility by releasing a specific, non-toxic, but temperature-modifying gas. This gas, in combination with existing urban heat island effects, leads to a measurable 2-degree Celsius increase in local ambient temperature within a 1km radius during peak summer months. This temperature increase, while not directly harming human health or plant operations, impacts local biodiversity (specific insect populations crucial for pollination) and subtly increases energy consumption for cooling in nearby residential areas. Addressing this requires a significant investment in a new, more advanced (and expensive) air purification technology, which would offer no immediate financial return and might even reduce the plant’s obvious energy savings from solar panels due to higher operational load. It is an "unseen impact" not covered by current regulations and not immediately apparent to the public.
The Task
What is Arjun’s imperative as a leader? Should he continue focusing on the visibly successful and PR-friendly sustainability initiatives (Option A), or should he prioritize the unseen, systemic environmental impact that costs more, offers no immediate PR benefit, and is not legally mandated (Option B)? Develop a strategy that allows Arjun to justify his final choice to his board, employees, and the community. How should leaders weigh overt, measurable "green" credentials against subtle, system-level ecological consequences that defy easy categorization or immediate public recognition?