Top Indian unicorn founders, venture capitalists back Green Startup Pledge

World's first climate pledge for startups is backed by India's leading VC funds and supported by entrepreneurs including Nithin Kamath, Deepinder Goyal and Bhavish Aggarwal

Top Indian unicorn founders and venture capitalists have come together to back ‘The Green Startup Pledge (GSP), the world's first climate pledge for startups and for building a green economy.

The Green Startup Pledge (GSP) has been developed as a collaboration between ACT For Environment and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and is in alignment with achieving the UN's net zero emission target by 2050. It is backed by India’s leading VC funds and supported by entrepreneurs including Nithin Kamath, Deepinder Goyal and Bhavish Aggarwal.

“Climate may not be top of mind when building a high-growth business, but it is increasingly important,” said Deepinder Goyal, Founder - Zomato. “Sustainability can have significant business benefits – with customers, employees, investors, on the bottom line and for the planet.”

Goyal said Zomato has already taken steps in this direction. He said GSP helps startups incorporate sustainability into core business operations in a way that builds better and delivers business results.

Industry sources project 35-65 per cent of the economic growth and 100 million jobs being created by startup businesses by 2030. Increasingly, startups are also driving new business best practices.

“The Green Startup Pledge will drive this transition, support startups in scaling with sustainable practices and providing resources so that India can deliver on its climate promises,” said Prashanth Prakash, Co-founder - Accel India and a member of the board at ACT.

The pledge will be launched at UNFCCC COP27 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, on the 12th of November as well as at the Bengaluru Tech Summit on the 19th of November with the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.

Anirban Mukherjee, Partner and Managing Director at BCG, said such an initiative is fundamental to sustainable innovation. “It aims to create a common platform for innovators to collaborate and leverage resources tailored to their needs,” said Mukherjee.

The pledge is a global public commitment by a startup to build and grow both economically and ecologically by integrating or transitioning to sustainable business operations. It will be initiated with Indian startups and aims to scale globally with startups from around the world.

Startups committing to GSP will benefit from frameworks that are flexible, streamlined and aligned with their business operations. A resource platform of tools, resources and reputable vendors will be made available to support implementation.

"Climate (change) isn't a distant threat, it's here and now,” said Nithin Kamath, Founder, Zerodha. “In order to have a realistic chance of combating it, we all have to make changes, both big and small.”