Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Sustainability for Indian Businesses - Cohort 6

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

About Programme

Course – Teaser Video

With climate-related risks and associated multi-level resource pressures posing a real threat to industry worldwide, bringing sustainability into planning and execution is an opportunity of growth for industries. Be it value-driven, compliance-driven or mandate-driven, there is a growing realization within the industrial sector in India that value can be created in facilitating sustainable pathways and reinvested towards the growth of companies and industry at large. The trade-off between sustainability and profitability, however, continues to be a hurdle and both “top-down” and “bottom-up” reforms are warranted in all the four pillars of sustainability – Mitigation, Adaptation, Recovery, and Innovation – and their effectual and just implementation to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The goal of the program is to familiarize learners with the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability in connection with its real-world implications. Through communicating the existing (and upcoming) toolkit for imagining sustainable Industry Landscape in India at the backdrop of India’s changing policy frameworks, the course inculcates a systemic view into sustainability in tandem with equipping learners to ideate practical sustainable scenarios for their respective businesses.

The course is structured in the following manner:

MODULE-1: Essentials of Sustainability

MODULE-2: Sustainability in the Corporate Ecosystem

MODULE-3: Measuring, Reporting and Re-assessing Sustainability

MODULE-4: Sustainability Toolkit

MODULE 5 : Sustainability Worldview

MODULE 6 : Actioning Sustainability

Course Start date: Aug 21, 2026

Course End date: Oct 06, 2026

Time: Pre- recorded lectures will be released on Fridays and Online Live sessions on Saturdays (IST)

Programme Content

MODULE-1: Essentials of Sustainability

Faculty Incharge:

Prof. Sathyanarayanan Seshadri, Dept. of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, IIT Madras

Dr Charuta Kulkarni, Principal Scientist, School of Sustainability, IIT Madras

Prof. Venkatraman Srinivasan, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Prof. Indumathi Nambi, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Dr Kaushal Kumar Jha, Adjunct Faculty, Dept. of Engineering Design, CEO, Center for Excellence in Energy and Telecommunications (CEET), IIT Madras

Dr Rahul Muralidharan, R & D Specialist, The Energy Consortium, IIT Madras

Dr Christoph Woiwode, Visiting Professor, Indo-German Centre For Sustainability, IIT Madras

About the Module:

This introductory module speaks about the nuts and bolts of Sustainability and dives into the concept of circularity in the context of today’s world. It scaffolds into brainstorming why sustainability makes sense for the businesses, helping shape the mindset essential for ideating real-world sustainable business strategies.

Concepts covered:

What is sustainability and what is not sustainability?
Climate Change, Risks, Adaptation
Water Resources and Management
Waste Management and Circular Economy
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Natural Resource Management
Socio-cultural Dimensions and Resources for Sustainable Transformations

Learning Outcomes:

Introduction to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and role of corporates in achieving SDGs
Systemic view into sustainability
Right mindset for all-round sustainable business strategy

MODULE – 2 : Sustainability in the Corporate Ecosystem

Faculty Incharge:

Prof. Ashwin Mahalingam, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Mr Madhavan Nampoothiri, Dept. of Management Studies, IIT Madras & Co-Founder, NordESG, Germany.

Dr Parama Roy, Adjunct Faculty, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Executive Director, Okapi Research and Advisory Pvt Ltd

Dr Rahul Muralidharan, R & D Specialist, The Energy Consortium, IIT Madras

About the Course

Starting with making sustainability as business case, the module provides a critical review of the existing sustainability frameworks (e.g. ESG). The module unfolds the Corporate Scenario Analysis toward climate-related risks and opportunities as an intrinsic mechanism, thereby making a way for weaving external mechanisms in implementing sustainability.

Concepts covered:

Business Case for Sustainability
ESG Assessment
Corporate Scenario Analysis
Extrinsic Sustainability Scenarios including Public Private People Partnerships; Small-Medium Enterprises and Grassroot-level Innovations

Learning Outcomes:

Sustainability-profitability trade-offs and synergies
How can we measure sustainability better using existing frameworks, both quantitatively and qualitatively?
How fine-tuning intra-organizational policies can make a way for implementing external and socially-just means of implementing sustainability?

MODULE 3 : Measuring, Reporting and Re-assessing Sustainability

Faculty Incharge:

Mr Raghuttama Rao, CEO, Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, IIT Madras

Prof. Santosh Kumar Sahu, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras

Prof. Rajnish Kumar, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras

Mr E. Nandakumar, CEO, International Centre for Clean Water, IIT Madras

About the Module:

This module’s delivery is rooted in the geopolitical context of India and its shifting Policy Landscape that, in turn, has implications for industries. The discussion goes on introducing upcoming toolkits toward environmental measurement frameworks and gets into the mechanics of environmental economics, thinking aloud its limitations and ways forward

Concepts covered:

State and Fate of Reporting Frameworks Why is it essential to go beyond the existing ESG reporting frameworks?
Where is India in terms of defining climatic and environmental goals and what are its business implications?
Environmental Policies and Practices
Carbon and Water Footprint Measurement Frameworks

Learning Outcomes:

Existing and upcoming frameworks for measuring and reporting sustainability
India’s Policy Landscape
Environmental assessments
Elements of environmental economics

MODULE 4 : Sustainability Toolkit

Faculty Incharge:

Prof. Ashwin Mahalingam, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Prof. Vinu R, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras

Prof. Sivakumar Palaniappan, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras.

Prof. Ravindra Gettu, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

Prof. Sathyanarayanan Seshadri, Dept. of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, IIT Madras

About the Module:

As the name suggests, the module offers the toolkit for ideating Sustainability pathways from cradle-to-grave. It deep dives into Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using real-world examples from multiple sectors.

Concepts covered:

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): Significance, Stages, Tools, Challenges
Examples from industries including biofuels, buildings, materials, energy technologies

Learning Outcomes:

What is LCA?
How is LCA done?
What are the different LCA tools and approaches that can be used to assess sustainability?
Peer-learning through industry-specific case studies

MODULE 5 : Sustainability Worldview

Faculty Incharge:

Prof. Sathyanarayanan Seshadri, Dept. of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, IIT Madras

Prof. Rajnish Kumar, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras

About the Module:

The modules 5 and 6 are embedded with hands-on strategies on actioning Sustainability in the respective business settings. It will help put Sustainability in context of Indian and global scenarios to the extent that can positively influence the process of ideating, planning, implementation, and troubleshooting. The module also consolidates an update of reporting frameworks and discusses Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) as part of India’s fight against climate change

Concepts covered:

Case Studies from the Developed and Developing Worlds

Learning Outcomes:

International and national view into sustainable management

MODULE 6 : Actioning Sustainability

Faculty Incharge:

Mr Raghuttama Rao, CEO, Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, IIT Madras

Prof. Ashwin Mahalingam, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras

About the Module:

The modules 5 and 6 are embedded with hands-on strategies on actioning Sustainability in the respective business settings. It will help put Sustainability in context of Indian and global scenarios to the extent that can positively influence the process of ideating, planning, implementation, and troubleshooting. The module also consolidates an update of reporting frameworks and discusses Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) as part of India’s fight against climate change

Concepts covered:

Crafting a Sustainable strategy for your business: selecting relevant framework(s); delineating Key Result Areas/Key Responsibility Areas; identifying periodic review and troubleshooting mechanisms
Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR)
Carbon markets
India’s performance in climate in fight

Learning Outcomes:

Peer-learning through industry-specific case studies
Development of action items for effectively implementing sustainable pathways in the view of upcoming Sustainability frameworks for India

Testimonials

"The course content and the course structure including the professors and the live sessions is very well laid out. It takes you through different aspects of sustainability, covers basics of a lot of fundamentals and gives an overall very good refresher. The course also brings you some case studies. Overall a great experience with great faculties."

Anonymous

"This course is really useful for sustainable development because one of my core areas in ongoing projects is sustainable development for green building and other projects. So that will be very useful and hopefully I will implement it for future development projects."

Anonymous

"I saw the syllabus and found that there are many different subjects being taught in one cohort, and there are many eminent professors who are contributing to this. Overall, it is actually a very nice course. You can get a lot of emphasis on different aspects, as well as in-depth studies with the study material. There are also many references given by the professors which will enable you to develop further."

Anonymous

"This course has provided brief content starting from basics to how sustainability works in industries, so it has been quite an impactful session and has helped many other people as well. Thank you, IITM."

Anonymous

"A very good program for anyone who is entering the sustainable area. It has recorded sessions where we have in-depth topics covered, and we could discuss with professors. I am looking forward to these courses which are lined up from the organization. Thank you."

Anonymous

"A lot of preparation has been done by the professors, and we have gained many insights through this course. One of the key takeaways is to compile the things I have learned and cascade them under an umbrella for management."

Anonymous

"Coming from an automobile background, I thought that hydrogen had the biggest potential for decarbonization. There were many learnings with regard to efficiency, etc. Battery electric vehicles offer better efficiency, and I found this course to be enriching."

Anonymous

"I signed up for this course 3-4 hours before the deadline, and the catalog was good, which convinced me to enroll."

Anonymous

"The way we work in public health is to offer technical assistance to the government, especially in the healthcare industry. We also invest and think about policies that can do good in society. This is the reason I joined this course."

Anonymous

"This course was an eye opener as it carefully distilled the concepts which could be applied in various sectors."

Anonymous

"I would say that this course has given great insights in daily practices as well as in the business perspective."

Anonymous

"Being an IIT Alumnus has given me access to this course. I found it to be a capsule with a lot of information compressed into a nice program. Its an essential course that has to be spread across the middle management as they are the link between the top and the actual grassroot employees."

Anonymous

"Companies need to start with implementation first and then target reporting. The IITM CODE and NPTEL team has been a crucial part of driving sustainability, and it needs to be done on a massive scale."

Anonymous

"The best part about the course is that it was simplified and I was able to correlate with my work. The concepts I have learned from the course, I am able to effectively explain to my colleagues."

Anonymous

"Having done this course, we can speak the language of sustainability in the market. We will be ensuring that what we learnt, when we deal with our customers to earn their business in sustainability, the subject matter expertise we gained from the faculty, we can redeploy that."

Anonymous

"This course was helpful in getting the foundational basic right. At, we do a lot of projects that promote sustainable agricultural practices, and a lot of those practices require a deep fundamental understanding of practices."

Anonymous

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Prashansa Uttam

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+91 9403890085[email protected]Mon – Fri, 9am – 5pm IST

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

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Sustainability for Indian Businesses - Cohort 6 | IIT Madras