Mahindra & Mahindra today announced the winners of the first edition of Mahindra Rise Sustainability Champion Awards in an effort to inspire change for a better future. Mahindra Automotive has instituted this initiative to recognize young and rising change makers. The award recognizes emerging sustainability icons in four categories: Clean Air, Clean Energy, Green Mobility, and Clean Water.

Mahindra's sustainable initiative aims to become a key platform that creates opportunities and provides recognition to the young changemakers of today to take on the role of future icons. 

Among the ones present at the awards were Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Director, Auto and Farm Sectors, Mahindra Group as well as Mahindra & Mahindra's Chief Design Officer, Pratap Bose.

"We believe that as we see climate change around us, sustainability has to be a priority. Many things are changing and we can feel the impact of these changes. It is our responsibility to act now, to make changes and to make a difference. At Mahindra, we measure success not just by profit but by purpose. Purpose has many meanings to many people but we have kind of brought that alive with the Mahindra Rise initiative. This initiative is about providing direction to us and all our employees as an organization to do the right things which impact the people around us and the community. We believe that all of us as citizens in this journey have to do our bit to not just drive outcomes and profits but to become enablers to that and sustainability is one such thing that we all have to be committed to" said Jejurikar kick-starting the awards ceremony.

The nominees for the Clean Air, Clean Energy, Green Mobility, and Clean Water categories were chosen by a panel of jury members which included Madhav Pai, CEO, WRI India; Mukund Vasudevan, Managing Director Enterprise, Moglix; Vinuta Gopal, CEO and Founder, Asar Social Impact Advisors and Bhaskar Natarajan, Director Programs, AEEE.

Winners
Clean Air: Apurva Bhandari, Founder, SankalpTaru
Founded by Bhandari, SankalpTaru Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a healthier, greener, and cleaner planet through tree plantation. According to the foundation, they have planted and survived 3.6 million trees over 5000 hectares, reducing 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the course of their lifetime.

Clean Energy: Simarpreet Singh, Founder, Hartek Solar
Named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list of achievers in 2019 for his work in clean energy and sustainability, Singh and his company Hartek Solar installs rooftop solar projects across India with a mission to provide clean and affordable energy across India.

Green Mobility: Nikita Lalwani, Founder and CEO, CroozeApp
Lalwani's mobile app CroozeApp aims to popularise cycling as a means of everyday transport and reward cyclists for their cycling kilometres with a gamified experience.  According to Lalwani, CroozeApp has built a community of 25,000 cyclists who have cycled for more than 30 million kilometers and saved almost 45,000 tons of CO2.

Clean Water: Garvita Gulhati - Founder and CEO, Why Waste?
Founded in 2015 by Gulhati, Why Waste? is a mobile app which aims to help people conserve water by tracking their water footprint and provide them with real-time challenges in order to lessen it as much as possible. As per Why Waste? they have prevented the wastage of over 10 million litres of water.

Pratap Bose has also collaborated with fashion designer Rimzim Dadu to create an all-electric one-of-one XUV400 which will be auctioned and all proceeds from the auction will be distributed equally among the winners to further support their cause as part of India's net-zero mission.