The three-day bootcamp concludes with participating start-ups being awarded certificates.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
NSRCEL, the incubation cell of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), hosted a three-day circular economy bootcamp, aiming to foster sustainability-driven business solutions and scaling ventures to global markets. The camp that brought together 26 start-ups from across the country was organised in collaboration with Pernod Ricard India Foundation (PRIF) and Yunus Social Business Fund.
The bootcamp featured multiple sessions covering aspects of entrepreneurship, including strategies for expanding business to global markets, leveraging carbon markets, operational efficiencies and challenges for start-ups. It also served as a platform for founders to exchange insights and receive mentorship from industrial experts in sustainable business practices.
Talking to The Hindu, Nachiket Kulkarni, Assistant Vice President of Impact Orbit, a vertical under NSRCEL, noted that the objective of the camp was to introduce ventures to service providers, fostering inter-cohort partnerships to facilitate customer-supplier relationship.
Citing ventures such as Unbubble, C Gem and Go Fig, he said, “These ventures address issues like packaging replacement, carbon market education and food waste reduction, our motive is to open a door for unique and impactful solutions.”
Of climate change
In one of the sessions, Gagan Reddy, Chief Technology Officer of ProClime, discussed the importance of making climate change profitable, emphasizing on the need for companies to engage with the monetary angle of climate change to drive environmental benefits.
“2030 is going to be an important year. Most of the companies promised a net zero emission target by 2050. But it’s too far away. For most NDCs that either countries or companies have submitted as a voluntary compliance, they depend on a magic bullet,” he said.
His session included potential for carbon credit opportunities, current market conditions, overview of global emission trajectory, expanding on different scopes of emissions, introduction to the concept of carbon projects and the need for proper documentation and methodologies to create and verify carbon credits. Reddy also spoke about the challenges such as the need for better regulation and transparency in carbon market.
Srijesh Gupta, founder of C GEM, a non-profit organization from Ahmedabad, noted that the aim of the company is to support small farmers and communities in the agroforestry space by providing better control over carbon projects. He also highlighted the exploitation of farmers and NGOs by developers.
“There is difficulty in balancing profitability with impact, as startups often struggle to achieve significant impact while sustaining themselves financially,” he pointed out.
Sustainable ventures
Rounak Mistry, founder of Greenovate Solutions which focuses on developing carbon capture technology aimed at medium and small-scale SMEs and manufacturing industries, said that the main objective behind attending the bootcamp was to create a circular model for carbon capture.
Akash Singh, founder of Unbubble, shared his journey of usingan unsustainable packaging business in a sustainable gifting business in his former company. Unbubble is a plant-based, sustainable protective packaging that aims to replace thermocol and plastic bubble wraps. The company currently has two products – Packaging Peanut, a packaging edible for animals, and Foam Packaging which turns into compost after use.
Published – March 13, 2025 09:00 am IST
