mumbai the hospitality industry has been presented with a new mantra of reduce reuse and recycle to influence real change aiming to act as a catalyst asias fist green hotel conferenceat powai set the tone for bringing about real measurable and visible change in environment conservation held at melhua the fern ecotel on june 07 the erudite gathering saw a healthy mix of travel hotel and industry stalwarts sharing the platform they conferred the title of green championon viren merchantand shrikrishna bhagwat who founded the a dvanced locality management alm in mumbaiin the 90s an innovative concept which has blossomed into a national movement today while noted painter cartoonist and national awardwinning author aabid surti earned this title for his simple and outstanding innovative work for water conservation through his ngo drop deadhailing this conference as the torch bearer in the cleaner and greener movement by making an economic case for a green hotelparam kannampilly c hairman and managing director of concept hospitality pvt ltdsaid weas a company have made protecting the environment part of our brand commitment just by saying we are a green hotel is not enough we need to define measure analyse and eventually have control which helps an external audit and brings credibility to our effortsaddressing the topic of environment the community alm viren merchant alm cofounder and a chartered accountby profession highlighted the role of communities and society in conserving the environment reminiscing on the problems that forced them to think on these lines he said fed up and forced to deal with the issue of lack of civic amenities in our locality we actually stumbled on this concept and in the process experimented with alternatives to clean and beautify our area if we get together to solve our problems nothing can stop us we realise that people have the power a visibly charged aabid surtisharing his inspiration behind his movement said i realized that living in mumbai i cannot save the ganga but surely i can save a few drops my appeal to all citizens is if i can you can in focus was the panel discussion titled the other sidefeaturing eminent speakers from the fields of fmcg policy csr and technology ramesh chembath marketing head godrej appliances shrikrishna bhagwat senior member bmc alm cofounder karan shah ceo cofounder growtreescomand vivek gilani director strategy cbalance solutions hub no2co2in represented these fields respectively ramesh chembath observed in our organization green is in our dna we believed in green much before it became fashionable our products are researched and designed to create a balance between what we can give back to mother nature while offering the consumer measurable savings vivek gilani addressed the gathering on a separate topic hotel carbon measurement index s tressing the significance of environment conservation awareness he described the fragile nature of our planet as akin to a ticking bomb we need to reduce our carbon footprint by 50 as of today to ensure