India poised to be leader in sustainable tech: Honeywell chief scientist

The Indian economy is developing very fast and the country is poised to become a leader in sustainable technologies, a senior official of American technology firm Honeywell has said.

India is an emerging economy, which provides an opportunity to directly build sustainable infrastructure, instead of building it using legacy technologies that are now being abandoned in places like the Europe in the United States, Honeywell, Corporate Chief Scientist, Sustainability Technologies, Gavin Towler told PTI.

"There are some parts of India, some regions in India now that actually have very high levels of renewable power, and very low levels of fossil fuel intensity. I think India is poised to become much more of a leader in sustainable technologies," Towler said on the sidelines of a company event.

India's historical cumulative emissions from 1850 to 2019 amounted to less than 4 per cent of cumulative carbon dioxide emissions of the world from the pre-industrial era, despite being home to 17 per cent of the world's population.

India, at the 26th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 26) in November, 2021, announced its target to achieve net zero by 2070.

Towler said India's economy is still relatively small and developing very fast and it is not under the same pressure to move as quickly to decarbonise as all other countries.

Honeywell has been working across all industry verticals to reduce green house gas emissions. The company said it has developed a catalyst-coated membranes for the production of Green Hydrogen in India.

A senior company official on the sidelines of the event said that Honeywell is currently in discussions with several manufacturers in India to supply this technology for the electrolysis of green hydrogen.

"We've got a big footprint in India. actually most of our scientists and engineers are in India. I can say almost every technology that Honeywell develops, has the Indian team working on it with the exception of may be a few Defense and Space Technologies," Towler said.

The company recently established a sustainability centre of Excellence (CoE) in Madurai, Tamil Nadu with the objective to serve as a hub for support in engineering, innovation, and collaboration on sustainability initiatives, both within the company and with partners.

Honeywell in India through its philanthropic arm, Honeywell Hometown Solutions India Foundation (HHSIF) in June committed to invest over Rs 150 crore in this decade towards environmental sustainability projects in rural communities in India.

Towler said that India is a exciting country for Honeywell from business perspective as well with Biofuel segment being one is one of them.

"India is a major agricultural producer and that means a lot of agricultural waste gets generated. This creates opportunities for not producing more biogas, but also take producing sustainable aviation fuel," he said.

The G20 declarations made under India's Presidency recognises the importance of sustainable biofuels.

"We are working with all of the refineries and the fields producers in India to increase the amount of biofuels biofuels is one big area of interest," he said.

Towler said Honeywell is trying to mix India's traditional building architecture with company's green building technology to reduce GHG emissions.

"Traditionally, Indian buildings were designed to minimise the heating and make sure we had cooled space with high ceilings and things like that. We are working to integrate the modern automation technologies, along with traditional Indian ideas around architecture and building sustainability," Towler said.

He said green building technologies, automation and green fuel segment offers big growth opportunity for Honeywell in India.

Honeywell India President Ashish Modi last month had said that the company expects to double business in India to about USD 2 billion over a period of next five years.