Keynote address at PAN IIM Alumni Meet, Gurgaon, July 26, 2015
Let’s first discuss why sustainability is a topic business leader’s need to worry about and do something about. A recent ranking of top cities in the world on sustainability ranked Frankfurt, London, Copenhagen and Amsterdam as the most sustainable cities in the world. Equally it rated high-growth cities in emerging countries like Jakarta, Manila, and our own Mumbai and Delhi at the absolute bottom of that list (Mumbai was 47th and Delhi was 49th out of 50 cities surveyed!!). If you do a Google search on “building sustainable cities” the first article that pops up is a Harvard Business Review article by John Macomber, and the case study he mentions of how not to build a city is our own Gurgaon!! These global studies are an eye opener but at some level we don’t need them to tell us what is wrong with our cities. We live it every day. The traffic congestion, pollution, power outages, law & order concerns, high cost of living are just some of the problems we face on a daily basis. While our fast growing cities are currently a magnet of economic opportunity, it is clear that if they continue growing in this crazy, unplanned, unsustainable way, this party is not going to last. History is full of examples of great cities that died. I give some of our fast growing cities like Gurgaon not more than 10-15 years in which they will become ungovernable and unlivable and will choke themselves to disaster.
Reversing the current mess and the ongoing pattern of unsustainable growth will require a paradigm shift in mindsets & planning and a herculean effort in execution. Typically, sustainability is one of those Important but not Urgent topics. We worry about it but actions around it rarely make it to our Monday morning To Do list. Friends, we just do not have the luxury of time. We all have to act because it is such a massive problem that government has neither the intellectual thought process nor the resources to make positive change happen themselves, certainly not alone. If we don’t take urgent and significant actions the future of our businesses and families in these cities is doomed.
I am sorry I have started off like a Cassandra and talked about doom and gloom!! Let me now turn to the glass half full side and focus on solutions. I have had the opportunity to be a part of NASSCOM Haryana over the past 4.5 years, initially as the Co-Chair and past 2.5 years as the Chairperson of the NASSCOM Regional Council. This has given me the opportunity to come across and work with a number of industry leaders who have great awareness of the sustainability challenge and are taking concrete actions around it. Thus NASSCOM Haryana has set a charter for itself that is not just about developing the industry but also contributing back to the Gurgaon ecosystem and helping it develop in a sustainable fashion. There is a realization that with 350,000 employees the IT/BPO industry is a very big driver of Gurgaon’s growth and is uniquely positioned to help it develop in a holistic manner. There is also the realization that if we don’t contribute who else will. We have been working closely with the state government at many levels, with experts and with a number of citizen groups. Based on my work in Gurgaon I have developed a framework of 6 action areas necessary to build a sustainable city in the India context. These 6 areas are: 1) Economic Engine, 2) Physical Infrastructure, 3) Environment, 4) Social Ecosystem, 5) Governance and 6) Citizen Participation.
I would now like to share brief perspectives on these 6 action areas. I have taken the context of Gurgaon but the insights are perhaps relevant for many Indian cities.
- Economic EngineSustainability does not come at the expense of wealth; they do not need to be odds with each other. Every city needs a vibrant economic engine that drives jobs and prosperity. It is important that this economic engine is sustainable and for it might need to keep on reinventing itself. If the economic engine dies the city also tends to wither away. Good example of this is Detroit. In 1960 it had the highest per capita income of any city in the US driven by its position as the manufacturing hub for the booming automobile industry. However, Detroit struggled to find solutions to the loss of manufacturing jobs and by 2013 it had become the city with the highest poverty rate in the US.Rapid growth of Gurgaon over the past 15 years has been driven by the meteoric rise of the IT/BPO industry. This industry is a strong economic engine as India has a strong competitive position in it. However, we need to be mindful of the mega technology trends like social media, cloud computing, mobile and big data that are changing the business landscape dramatically. These could be a big disruption and severely impact the headcount and cost arbitrage based proposition that the IT/BPO industry largely relies on currently. Gurgaon lags Bangalore in the start-up activity. It is imperative that Gurgaon (and other Indian cities) build a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. NASSCOM is trying to partner with the state government to set up Start-Up warehouses and develop a forward-looking IT Policy that encourages innovation and start-up activity in Gurgaon. Much more still needs to be done!!
- Physical InfrastructureThe poor quality of physical infrastructure – broken roads, waterlogging in Monsoon, traffic jams, and exorbitant cost of housing – is the most visible manifestation that our cities as they exist today are just not sustainable. Transportation is the area that requires the biggest paradigm shift. Our fascination with bigger and more powerful cars is fatal. Cars are the most inefficient way of transportation in so many ways. They occupy large volume for the number of passengers transported and have high pollution footprint. Our roads are bad and need to be improved, but no amount of road construction can keep pace with the growth of vehicles. There is no option but to embrace public transportation and multi-modal transportation in a very pervasive way.If we look at some of the highest ranking cities on the Sustainability Index like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Singapore, their success has been driven by their hi-quality transportation infrastructure. Metro in Delhi and Rapid Metro in Gurgaon are good initiatives but we need to scale them up and focus on last mile connectivity. This requires an integrated approach to planning the transportation infrastructure. Special emphasis needs to be given to encouraging walking and cycling. Many cities have managed significant transformation in short periods of time. London, a city where I spend a lot of time, I have a seen a cycling revolution take place over the past 5 years. We are slowly developing a culture of recreational cycling in cities like Gurgaon. We need to build on that and encourage more executives to start cycling to work. Investing in cycling infrastructure and addressing road safety will be key enablers for that.
- EnvironmentOur natural environment provides conditions for development and growth, but it can also cause danger and damage. Quality of our environment is perhaps the best lead indicator for how sustainable our cities are going to be. We constantly interact with our environment and are damaging it so much that in turn it is going to be toxic for us. Let’s take the example of Gurgaon. It has one of the highest air pollution levels in the world. PM 2.5 levels are at 966 micrograms/cubic meter, which is 4 times the concentration levels marked as unhealthy (based on CSE study, state government study was much lower!!). Therefore children are developing respiratory problems and many households are forced to install air purifiers. While air pollution is more apparent (and public transportation that we have talked about earlier is potentially a key solution), the depletion of the water table is perhaps even a more serious existential issue. Ground water levels are depleting in Gurgaon at 2-3 meters per year. At this rate, ground water reserves will be all but extinguished by 2030. That is only 15 years away!! History is full of examples of cities that died because they lost their source of water. I worry that a similar doom will face Gurgaon unless we take serious steps around water harvesting and rationalizing water usage.
- Social EcosystemHealthcare, education, entertainment and law & order are key elements of the social ecosystem that determine the quality of life and the culture of the city. A new city like Gurgaon has much to offer in terms of entertainment (e.g., the CyberHub, various malls) and has a nice, young buzz to it. The problem with Gurgaon’s ecosystem is the socio-economic disparity. World-class office complexes and hi-quality condominiums are interspersed with slums and shanty towns. While there is a growing affluent class who are consuming very visibly, there is also a large underclass of original inhabitants who are now landless and of migrant workers. This socio-economic disparity is a key contributor to law & order problems. Gurgaon has the perception of being an unsafe city especially for women and children. They often live a cocooned existence afraid to walk around and being transported around the city in cars. While police has an important role to play in addressing the law & order problems, we need to address the underlying social factors to have sustainable solutions. Investing in skilling infrastructure for those displaced is important for them to find gainful employment. Businesses have an important role in helping develop their local communities. The recent CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) provision of the Company Bill is welcome in that context providing impetus for investment back into social causes.
- GovernanceAlong with Physical Infrastructure the element most broken in Gurgaon is Governance. Large parts of the city have been developed by individual developers with little integrated planning. There is multiplicity of government agencies, which leads to little accountability and lots of passing the buck. This multiplicity of the agencies is a key reason why Gurgaon is in such a mess. The so called ‘’millennium city’’ with aspirations of being a ‘’smart city’’ came only 3rd behind Karnal and Faridabad in Haryana government’s own assessment on the smart city criterion.To move Gurgaon forward it is essential there be a single body responsible for the administration and development of the city. Ideally that should be achieved by empowering the elected Municipal Corporation (MCG). If that cannot work for some reason, then government should consider setting up a single development authority like what NOIDA has done.
One of the first tasks that such an empowered body should do is to develop an Integrated Master Plan for Gurgaon. It is critical that we move beyond ad-hoc decisions and “band-aid” solutions and develop a long-term vision and plan for the city. Cities that have made significant transformations in recent decades have often been led by strong leaders (often City Mayors) who have set an ambitious vision and have then been very persistent in executing it. This need for leadership further points to the necessity of having a single point of empowerment and accountability for running the city.
- Citizen ParticipationThe task is building a sustainable city is so vast that it just cannot be done by the government alone, it requires strong citizen participation. In fact a sustainable and “smart” city is one where citizens are able to come together and find solutions to their civic problems on their own. However, lack of civic responsibility has been one of the banes of India in recent past. We are focused on our individual success and that of our families but rarely take responsibility for problems around us. This attitude has to change. I have mentioned a number of negatives about Gurgaon, but this is one aspect where I see lot of hope for Gurgaon. Increasingly I am seeing citizens coming together and taking proactive steps for the betterment of their communities. Gurgaon is famous for its very proactive Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs). It has also seen a citizen’s NGO build the Aravali Biodiversity Park and help reclaim a forest. Perhaps the most visible success story of citizen participation in Gurgaon is the Raahgiri Day. This started as a movement 1.5 years back to reclaim some of the roads in Gurgaon on Sunday mornings for pedestrians. It has turned into a real celebration on the streets where you can see citizens from all walks of life enjoying walking, running, cycling, yoga and much more. This event, which was started by couple of committed citizens in Gurgaon has now become a full movement and spread across multiple cities in India. This shows that in today’s digital age, if you have a good idea it can go viral very quickly.The final point I want to make on citizen participation is that a city is nothing but an aggregation of our individual mindsets and behaviors. Therefore, if we want to build a sustainable city it cannot happen if our individual lifestyles are not sustainable. This is easier said than done. We are living in a hyper-consumerist age with ever increasing wants and desires. Gandhiji said it well, “there is enough in this world for everybody’s needs but not for everybody’s greed.” This in many ways is the final frontier. All of us need to reflect on our individual lifestyles and see how we can change and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.
In conclusion, I would say that Urbanization is an irresistible force. We have seen a movement of people from rural to urban centers and that will likely continue perhaps even intensify in this century. We need to accept this trend and instead of dreaming of utopian solutions (move back to villages), we should focus on how we can build sustainable cities. The challenges of doing so are huge but not unsolvable. With the right vision, focus on execution, and collaboration between the government, businesses & citizens we can make it happen. If we do so, we would have helped not just build a sustainable city but help solve of the greatest challenges facing the world in the 21st century!!
