Genpact Takes the AI and Analytics Approach for Carbon Offsetting

Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital officer of Genpact, interacted with Analytics India Magazine and shared how their firm is enabling Fortune 500 companies across the globe with data analytics and AI.
Listen to this story

At present, the world is transitioning in three significant ways—for geopolitical and socio-economic world order; the shift towards a low carbon economy; and the scalable deployment of AI. Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital officer of Genpact, interacted with Analytics India Magazine and shared how their firm is enabling Fortune 500 companies across the globe with data analytics and AI in these three dimensions.

In December, Bloomberg reported that all the packaging and waste material from Amazon ends up getting burnt in India. This highlights the broken recycling system and how companies outsource their emissions to another country, ultimately making their emission untrackable and shine without flaws.

Srivastava gives an example of a company that spent approximately 24 months to shift their computer to the cloud, with the key objective of reducing their carbon footprint. The company did intricate calculations to measure the exact reduction they would achieve with this and were finally able to achieve that and publish the numbers. “The company missed out on a major factor, the disposition of the existing computers and systems has a carbon impact as well, which needs to be added back,” explained Srivastava. 

AIM Daily XO

Join our editors every weekday evening as they steer you through the most significant news of the day, introduce you to fresh perspectives, and provide unexpected moments of joy
Your newsletter subscriptions are subject to AIM Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

But this is not because the company planned to miss it, it is because they did not know that it is a question that they have to ask. This is where AI and ML tools come into the picture. “These technologies help us bring out the questions that we did not know we have to ask and are proving to be very important now”, said Srivastava.

“Think about carbon footprint comprehensively, and not conveniently”

“Climate is at the top of our client’s agenda list,” said Srivastava. He said that Genpact is in front of three services—data extraction, analytics, and change management


Download our Mobile App



First order of execution is extracting data from the locked up places like unstructured documents and classifying them for use and harmonising it. “Every company has tons of data, but the problem is that it is very messy, and most unavailable and locked up,” explained Srivastava. To this end, the firm leverages natural language processing models to extract information.

The second step—analytics—is what Srivastava calls the ‘shipping lane’. Now that the data is structured and managed, predicting and recommending information from the data to the companies allows them to ultimately reduce carbon footprint. Thinking of it like the journey or supply chain of a consumer product from one country to another. Genpact enables the company to analyse the emissions at each step of the chain and, thus, contributes to reducing the components that maximise the emissions.

Change management is the step where AI/ML plays the biggest role. “We can track the journey of a product to your footsteps and give you insights to choose options that enable you to offset your carbon footprint,” said Srivastava. 

Moving Beyond Budget

What ends up occurring is that a lot of companies get these analytics and prediction engines but they don’t do it as it is not something that can be done from a top-down approach—it has to be done individually. Srivastava gives another example of how companies keep replenishing products every year without asking the employees. “We have to ensure that we are not forcibly replenishing everyone’s phones, for example, because of some annual contract”.

According to Srivastava, this is an important discussion and has been increasing in the past 5–10 years. “It’s not happening because of the budget. It’s happening because of the carbon footprint, it’s happening because it makes an impact.”

Since Genpact is a professional services firm that does not undertake manufacturing and holds warehouses, Srivastava believes that they are in a better position in terms of carbon baseline. “We are not clean, but we are better off because we do not have a manufacturing footprint.”

Genpact believes that the societal and governance aspect 0f ESGs is as important as the environment. The company has trained around 50,000 people by providing them domain knowledge along with offering courses. “Governance is night and day,” said Srivastava. “We deal with Fortune 500 companies and any mistake can bring the company to a halt. So, governance is as important as anything else for us.”

Partnership with Climate Vault

Genpact’s partnership with Climate Vault takes the approach even further and pushes towards a very important objective. “There has been a lot of greenwashing in the market,” said Srivastava. It is not clear if the numbers put forward by the companies are accurate. These numbers can be exaggerated and oftentimes are just for marketing the goodness.

What climate vault does is, instead of going to the voluntary market of carbon credits, it goes into the regulatory market. For instance, if a company has to build a power plant, they would have to buy credits from the government before they can actually start the process. Climate Vault buys 100 of these credits from the climate market so that other companies cannot buy it. This results in reduction in the carbon emissions from the market as a whole.

Climate Vault has another initiative for offsetting carbon dioxide. Their unique approach is trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, encapsulating it, and burying it into the ground for 150 years. This is because they believe that stopping carbon emissions is not enough, as we have damaged the environment enough. Being carbon negative is the next step but also that this process is very expensive.

Genpact powers up Climate Vault by integrating them onto their platform and into different engines, along with bringing their clients into the ecosystem. The partners are also building an API to enable companies to measure the carbon offset of the product they are selling. Thus, making Climate Vault scalable.

Sign up for The Deep Learning Podcast

by Vijayalakshmi Anandan

The Deep Learning Curve is a technology-based podcast hosted by Vijayalakshmi Anandan - Video Presenter and Podcaster at Analytics India Magazine. This podcast is the narrator's journey of curiosity and discovery in the world of technology.

Mohit Pandey
Mohit dives deep into the AI world to bring out information in simple, explainable, and sometimes funny words. He also holds a keen interest in photography, filmmaking, and the gaming industry.

Our Upcoming Events

24th Mar, 2023 | Webinar
Women-in-Tech: Are you ready for the Techade

27-28th Apr, 2023 I Bangalore
Data Engineering Summit (DES) 2023

23 Jun, 2023 | Bangalore
MachineCon India 2023 [AI100 Awards]

21 Jul, 2023 | New York
MachineCon USA 2023 [AI100 Awards]

3 Ways to Join our Community

Telegram group

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Discord Server

Stay Connected with a larger ecosystem of data science and ML Professionals

Subscribe to our Daily newsletter

Get our daily awesome stories & videos in your inbox
MOST POPULAR

Council Post: From Promise to Peril: The Pros and Cons of Generative AI

Most people associate ‘Generative AI’ with some type of end-of-the-world scenario. In actuality, generative AI exists to facilitate your work rather than to replace it. Its applications are showing up more frequently in daily life. There is probably a method to incorporate generative AI into your work, regardless of whether you operate as a marketer, programmer, designer, or business owner.