The talks between Greenpeace
and telecom giant Airtel failed as the telecom operator refused to commit to a timeline
to disclose its carbon emissions and phase out diesel from its telecom tower
operations.
The senior management representatives of the
telecom giant along with
those from Indus Towers (an Airtel joint venture), Bharti Infratel (Bharti
Airtel’s fully owned subsidiary) and Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI),
said COAI would report to Greenpeace in three months on possible areas of
cooperation.
Greenpeace
delegation was led by Campaign Director Divya Raghunandan, Campaigners Abhishek
Pratap, Mrinmoy Chattaraj and Amrin Shaikh.
It is
unfortunate that Airtel failed to agree to our demands and thus there was no
headway in the meeting. We are urging the company to reconsider its stand on
the issue and come out clean in the public,” said Divya Raghunandan, Campaign
Director, Greenpeace India.
The meeting
between Airtel and Greenpeace was held a week after Greenpeace staged a
demonstration outside Airtel headquarters in Gurgaon near New Delhi demanding
the company to switch off diesel.
Despite
earlier having indicated that Airtel will give a commitment on the timelines
for carbon emission disclosure and diesel phase out, it did not come up with a
clear roadmap, In fact, it insisted that the entire industry needs to give
commitment and will come back only after
three months on what the entire industry will commit.
Greenpeace
has been urging Airtel to-
-Publicly disclose the carbon emissions of its
entire business operation and establish progressive emission reduction
targets
-Commit to shift the sourcing of 50% of its energy
requirements towards renewable energy sources and phase out diesel use in
its business operations by 2015.
-Catalyse a low-carbon economy wide growth, by
using its brand power to advocate for strong policies that
promote renewable energy
