Popular searches
How we are making change
1.1 Biodiversity Conservation and Enhancement at Mahindra Lifespaces
Biodiversity is yet to receive the attention of companies, unlike other topics such as climate change. However, More than half of the world’s economic output is dependent on nature, according to estimates by the World Economic Forum. But human activity has already wiped out 83% of mammals, and half of all plants. The high dependency of the global economy on nature means nature loss represents a significant risk to corporate and financial stability. The risks of inaction are immense. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2021 ranked loss of biodiversity as one of the top five risks in terms of impact and likelihood over the coming decade. But the opportunities from action are equally huge. Recently, the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) was also launched with the backing of financial institutions, corporates, and governments.
Mahindra Lifespaces as a responsible real estate company has adopted a nature-positive approach to protect and enhance biodiversity and integrated biodiversity conservation and enhancement as part of the project and product lifecycle. Biodiversity is an essential element of our projects. Increasing agrobiodiversity in our projects is a simple solution to provide better health for residents. Simple amenities of the organic vegetable garden, composting, chemical-free landscapes, native fruit, and vegetable plants are well integrated into our residential products. We assess the biodiversity of the property, retain the old trees, replant as necessary, and plant 10X times what is in the building footprint. This enables us to ensure cooler temperatures and clean air for future dwellers.
1.2. Integration into the project lifecycle
Biodiversity conservation is integrated into our project lifecycle right from the land acquisition stage till use phase of the products. Similar to technical and financial, environment due diligence is done as part of business development to ensure proper selection of land for our projects. Environmental impact assessment as part of the land acquisition stage aids in developing strategies for biodiversity conservation along with social and legal aspects of the land. During the design and use phase, we aim to incorporate local species and preserve existing plantations at sites as part of landscape design and development. In certain cases, where preservation is not possible, we transplant trees to a suitable location, where there is no danger of them being cut down. At our project at Bloomdale, we have successfully transplanted over 10 full-grown trees within the project sites. We also strive to restore the area around our developments so that our urban areas flourish.
We have also created an urban forest in Mahindra World City, Chennai.
Read about our urban forest at MWC Chennai.
1.3. Our Ten Point resolution on Biodiversity
On World Environment Day, 2020, Mahindra Lifespaces' adopted a ten-point resolution to protect and enhance biodiversity at our sites.
1.4. Engagement Initiatives on biodiversity conservation
A session for our employees as part of 'Making Sustainability Personal' - Associate level engagement program, was conducted on ‘Living with nature’ by Terracon Pvt. Ltd., highlighting the importance of biodiversity and actions that can be taken by real estate developers to conserve it.
Read more about Making Sustainability Personal.
