Economy & Market

Green Procurement

Published

2 years ago

June 14, 2024

Roshna

Jigyasa Kishore, Vice President – Enterprise Sales and Solutions, Moglix, discusses the strategic imperative that is green procurement, which is driving the shift towards more responsible purchasing practices.

A green tide is taking over the business world. Consumers, investors and regulators are increasingly demanding businesses to operate with environmental and social responsibility at the forefront. Nearly 50 per cent of consumers today are willing to pay a premium to buy from businesses that have a strong purpose and commitment to sustainability. This figure jumps up to 73 per cent of buyers in the B2B landscape. Such market sentiments mean that green businesses can expect to enjoy operating margins 3.7x higher on average than their traditional business peers.
Amidst the rising demand for sustainability, businesses are embracing procurement as a pivotal tool to drive corporate sustainability goals. Green procurement, with its focus on environmental and social factors in sourcing practices, is increasingly recognised as a strategic approach to align supply chain activities with sustainability objectives.

Benefits of going green
Green procurement, also known as sustainable procurement, goes beyond simply acquiring goods and services. It’s a strategic approach that integrates environmental considerations into every stage of the purchasing process. By prioritising environmentally-friendly products, services and suppliers, companies can significantly reduce their environmental footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future.
The positive impact of green procurement is far-reaching, offering a compelling case for businesses to embrace this novel approach.
• Reduced environmental impact: Green procurement directly tackles environmental challenges by minimising resource depletion, lowering carbon emissions and protecting ecosystems. Choosing energy-efficient equipment, recycled materials and local suppliers all contribute to a smaller ecological footprint for the business.
• Cost savings: Sustainable procurement might seem counterintuitive from a cost perspective initially. However, the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term adjustments. Energy and resource-efficient products save on operational costs. Additionally, minimising waste disposal reduces fees and promotes responsible resource management.
• Enhanced reputation and brand image: Consumers are actively seeking out businesses committed to sustainability. Implementing green procurement demonstrates a company’s commitment to social responsibility, fostering brand loyalty and attracting environmentally conscious consumers.

Green procurement strategy
Building a successful green procurement programme involves a multi-pronged approach:
• Supplier engagement: Collaboration is key. Partnering with suppliers who prioritise sustainability practices strengthens the entire supply chain’s environmental impact. Evaluating potential vendors based on their responsible sourcing practices and environmental certifications is crucial. Companies such as HUL and IKEA use stringent evaluation criteria to ensure that they partner only with the most responsible suppliers.
• Product life cycle considerations: Green procurement goes beyond the initial purchase. It considers the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction and production to use and disposal. Choosing products with recycled content, low energy consumption and easy end-of-life disassembly or recycling options is imperative to make sure that sustainability is built into the entire product journey rather than just the initial stage. Evaluation tools such as Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) can help assess a product’s environmental, social and economic impacts throughout its life cycle, from raw materials to disposal.
• Compliance and standards: Staying abreast of environmental regulations and industry standards is vital for effective green procurement. Regulatory bodies often set guidelines for energy efficiency, waste management and hazardous materials use. Aligning procurement practices with these standards ensures compliance and responsible sourcing.

Grass isn’t always greener
While the benefits of green procurement are undeniable, implementing such a programme does come with its own set of challenges.
Existing suppliers might be hesitant to adapt to new sustainability requirements. Even internally for a business, employees responsible for procurement may lack the training and knowledge to effectively implement green practices.
To overcome such challenges, engaging all stakeholders, from procurement teams to executive leadership, is vital. Communicate the environmental and financial benefits of green procurement to gain buy-in at all levels. Invest in training for procurement professionals to equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed, sustainable purchasing decisions.
Collaborate with industry partners and sustainability organisations to leverage expertise and access resources.

Measuring true impact
Without clear metrics, gauging the success of green procurement efforts becomes an exercise in guesswork. KPIs should serve as the compass for the sustainability journey.
One crucial metric is tracking carbon footprint reduction. Measure the emissions associated with purchases and set ambitious goals for ongoing decrease. Another key area is waste diversion. Implement systems to monitor how much waste is diverted from landfills through responsible disposal and recycling practices. Finally, analyse suppliers’ sustainability ratings through established systems. This ensures that the supply chain is aligned with environmental goals and avoids inadvertently undermining efforts through unsustainable sourcing practices. By tracking these KPIs, businesses gain valuable insights into the impact of green procurement programs and can refine strategies for continuous improvement.

A bright green future
The future of procurement is bright green with exciting developments afoot.
Advanced data analysis and life cycle assessment tools will facilitate more informed and impactful purchasing decisions. Embracing the circular economy, which focuses on extending product life cycles, will drive the utilisation of recyclable and reusable materials. Increased visibility into supply chain practices will empower companies to collaborate with vendors who uphold sustainable practices.
With these developments and ever-increasing adoption by existing businesses, green procurement is poised to play a central role in shaping sustainable business practices and ensuring long-term corporate success.
By embracing green procurement, an organisation doesn’t just take a step towards building a sustainable business – it builds a legacy. The future that businesses envision, the one where environmental responsibility and business success go hand-in-hand, starts with the next purchase decision. It’s time to embark on this journey, one sustainable choice at a time.

About the author
Jigyasa Kishore comes with 15+ years of experience at building brands, enabling enterprise growth, and transforming organisational performance with a technology-first approach. At Moglix, she leads brand growth as a digital supply chain solutions architect for large manufacturing enterprises. She is an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and Bangalore University.

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Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

3 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

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