RIL chief Mukesh Ambani says no option but to make businesses green

Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani on Monday said there is no option for businesses but to go green and every unit of Reliance Industries would have to pivot

Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani on Monday said there was no option for businesses but to go green and every unit of Reliance Industries will have to pivot as the conglomerate moves towards net-zero.

“We have no option as a society, as a business but to really adopt a sustainable business model,” he said while speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum.

On if this green push will require dialling back on some of Reliance’s businesses, Ambani said “it means transforming our businesses and integrating that with the future”, without sharing more details.

The pivot towards a greener, cleaner version of itself won’t be an easy one for India’s most valuable company, which got about 60% of revenue from its hydrocarbon-fuelled energy operations for the year-ended March.

Ambani pressed for bridging the digital divide “both among nations and within nations”, saying connectivity and communications have become the fundamental rights of every person.

“The digital divide must be bridged, both among nations and within nations. This is because connectivity and communications have become the basic needs, and also fundamental rights of every human being on the planet (just) as basic as food, clothing, and shelter,” he said.

Ambani, who heads India's youngest but the largest telecom operator, said, “Our Prime Minister (had) given a call for Digital India and I was privileged (that) our digital services company called Jio rolled out a 4G network across the length and breadth of the country by 2018.”

“We have always wondered what would we have done without a 4G network across India in facing the corona crisis,” he added.

“I think that this string of digital and physical (healthcare infrastructure) will be the new normal,” he said. “To my mind, it is an absolute must for all economies to integrate, and enhance this digital infrastructure which has been so very useful in the corona crisis.” “The crisis tested the resilience of mankind. The world has suffered, but ultimately what will triumph... is not the virus, but the human spirit,” he said, adding that there has been unprecedented global solidarity in the production of vaccines as well as the inoculation drive.

The global collaboration was not restricted to just vaccines. Countries came out to help the ones that were facing a crisis.

“We in India will never forget Qatar’s friendship during this crisis when it moved much beyond commerce and even used all their passenger aircraft to get medicine and supplies to India” during the second wave of Covid-19 infection, he said.

“What this has shown is that Qatar will be a small nation in sight but it has a very big heart,” he said. “Because I think that trade along with purpose, and compassion is the way forward.” Ambani said the second challenge is to make sure that economies that did not have the benefit of stimulus support, are nursed back and they grow.

The three-day event kicked off with Qatar’s ruler calling on countries to avoid hoarding vaccines to the “detriment of others”. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa urged developed economies to aid Africa’s recovery and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame said African nations are “trying to find partners” to manufacture vaccines on the continent.