Ather Energy working to improve overall sustainability

Bengaluru-based EV company, Ather Energy, has released its first Impact report, which measures its overall social, environmental and economic impact.

• Ather Energy plans to install 500 charging points

• The company has achieved 99 percent of localisation

The FY2019-2020 report provides a detailed analysis of the company’s efforts to create a change in the ecosystem around it. The impact assessment was done by Aspire Impact, a social enterprise focused on impact leadership and impact ecosystem development.

Ather Energy underwent a comprehensive assessment using Aspire Impact’s proprietary framework across over 250 impact metrics and was awarded Aspire Impact’s Gold Leaf accreditation for its overall Impact Management. Ather Energy claims it is the first Indian and second automotive company globally, besides Tesla, to publish an Impact report.

According to the company, the global sustainability reporting landscape has been mainly dominated by large, public-listed companies in many countries, including India, as regulations mandate that each company report on sustainability metrics. While progressive companies treat ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting as a critical part of their strategy, sustainability reporting is also evolving, and Impact reporting is currently the most comprehensive reporting system available.

Ather says it has a two-pronged approach to building a sustainable ecosystem. The company has built a vehicle and charging infrastructure platform from scratch and has also focused on helping develop a local supply chain. As a result, Ather Energy has managed to achieve 99 percent localisation (except for cells) in the vehicle. In parallel, sustainability has been a core driving force in Ather Energy’s endeavours and operations.

Ather scooters slash CO2 emissions

In FY2019-2020, Ather Energy says its vehicles reduced 7.5 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions. 

The company is also said to be on track to expand its presence to 100 cities with a new product portfolio by FY2023, along with adding more safety features on its products like crash detection and SOS, tow detection, tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) and remote diagnostics, among others. By FY2022, Ather Energy plans to install 500 charging points across the country. Ather Energy is also aiming to use 80 percent of their energy consumption using solar energy and increase the ratio of recycled water to total water consumption by 84 percent.

Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO, Ather Energy, said: "The impact of our work through our products for the EV market is clear but building a long-term impact-focused organisation is about more than a few founding product decisions. Just like financial metrics, measuring impact has to be made an institutional process, expanding far beyond just the product, and covering people, planet, and policy too. Measuring and publicly sharing the same will help us create a system where in the long term we will be able to hold ourselves accountable to a public standard and hence constantly improve on the same. While this is just the first report, we are already seeing big leaps in the WIP report for FY2021, bringing out the advantage of pushing impact as a company-wide metric.”