CSR activities:

Blue Star and CSR

Two years ago, I had talked about Blue Star�s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and mentioned the areas of energy efficiency and eco-friendly refrigerants as two priority issues that we were addressing. Since then, our thinking on CSR has broadened and taken more definite shape.

We have chosen 3 broad areas to focus our CSR activities:

Energy Conservation

This is comprised of two segments:

Providing Energy Efficient Products and Services.
Other Energy Conservation Measures.

Environmental Protection
Community Service

Let me explain the progress we have made:

1(a) Energy Efficient Products & Services:

Energy efficiency of our products remains a corner-stone of our research and development efforts. Here are some examples:

Blue Star differentiates itself by designing and developing innovative and energy efficient products. Your Company is the first manufacturer in India to develop and launch Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) airconditioning systems with digital scroll technology. These intelligent airconditioning systems are able to reduce electricity consumption by upto 30%.
We are committed to the energy labeling programme initiated by Bureau of Energy Efficiency and all our wall mounted split airconditioners are now star-rated.
Blue Star is playing a leading role in promoting the concept of Green Buildings in India. We have on our rolls as many as 30 accredited energy auditors and 3 of them are accredited in LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) for Green Building services. Using these resources, Blue Star offers a variety of services to save power and conserve other natural resources in new as well as existing buildings.

1(b) Other Energy Conservation Measures:

Conservation goes beyond using efficient products. A huge amount of energy is wasted nationally due to sheer ignorance and lack of awareness. Our plans include:

Helping deserving institutions such as hospitals and colleges to save power by conducting free walk-through energy audits. To start with, we propose to cover 150 institutions in this financial year.
Creating awareness of Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection by delivering lectures, sharing experiences and conducting workshops among schools, colleges and public associations such as Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs. A number of employees of Blue Star will participate in this programme. Our plan is to conduct 500 awareness programmes in this financial year.
Initiating selected projects within Blue Star including conversion of selected offices into Green Buildings.

Environmental Protection: This is a vast area where many organisations, institutions and individuals are involved in different ways. Our activities include:

Contributing in the technical domain by being at the cutting edge of refrigeration technology in the use of eco-friendly refrigerants like R134(a) and R410(a) in our products.
We intend to get broader involvement of our people by using bio-degradable material, recycling waste and conserving water in our factories and offices.
We plan to support deserving environmental protection projects in the public domain. The support would include both financial and volunteer involvement.

Community Service: The third leg of our CSR plans is to serve the local community in the vicinity of our manufacturing facilities. To start with, we are taking up two projects to help the desperately needy rural people around our new plant at Wada in Maharashtra: (a) vocational training (b) basic healthcare services.

We have made a modest start in CSR. Even this limited effort has generated a great deal of interest throughout the Company and a desire in many of our employees to play a role. We are still in the early stages of CSR. As we gain experience, the activities will expand quickly in the years to come..

Source: www.bluestarindia.com/investors/speech.asp

Contact Information:

Blue Star Ltd.

Kasturi Buildings

Mohan T Advani Chowk

Jamshediji Tata Road

Mumbai-400 020

Maharashtra

Phone No. : 022-66654000

Fax :022-66654151

Email : bthiagarajan@bluestarindia.com

Website : http://www.bluestarindia.com/

Industry Sector: Air conditioners

Products / Services: Air Conditioners

Other locations of factories / offices: 5 Manufacturing units , 24 offices , 650 dealers.

Previous year�s CSR activities & rating: