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spotlight
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08
magis
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february 2017
In Conversation
Harish Hande
Co-founder, SELCO
There are different
views on sustainability.
What is yours?
Sustainability is a form of inclusiv-
ity for us — inclusivity of eco-
system, flaura fauna, human beings
and even the person sitting next to
you. How do you do it without put-
ting a negative impact on any part
of the ecosystem. Many are of the
view that Ola and Uber are creating
livelihoods but those are the same
companies that have destroyed the
means of livelihood of several
au-
towalas
and taxi drivers. So sustain-
ability on the backs of somebody
else or at the cost of environment is
totally unacceptable.
In amarket-driven
society is it possible to
do business without
affecting others?
Market-based sustainability is
hardly a 5 to 6 decade old concept
and suddenly we have got sucked
into the thought process because
someone has been doing the propa-
ganda for all these years. The mar-
ket driven ideology has increased
the divide between the rich and the
poor, which was not so stark 5-7
decades ago.
To every social initia-
tive there are several
challenges. What was
your biggest challenge
when you co-founded
SELCO?
As a society we are deeply confused
between education and learning.
Biggest challenge was the percep-
tion that financial poverty was same
as intellectual poverty. We never
Harish Hande, co-founder of SELCO, discusses the challenges of meeting
social objectives through a commercial venture, while Shubha Ramachandran,
water sustainability consultant, talks about her work in water management