MetLife Foundation and OneStage have launched ‘Plastic-Free Gurugram,’ a sustainability programme aiming to reach over 100,000 residents by cutting single-use plastic use and improving waste management.
Unveiled during PNB MetLife’s 25th anniversary, it engages RWAs, institutions, and malls.
A baseline survey of 228 respondents found 84.4% segregate waste at home, but 77.8% still use disposables at gatherings.
Renvion Solutions Private Limited said on Thursday it had begun operations on an integrated South Delhi waste collection and transportation project, deploying the city’s first large-scale zero-emission collection fleet under a public-private concession with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The project, run through special-purpose vehicle South Delhi MSW Solutions Private Limited, was awarded via a three-stage Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) tender. It covers 23 wards across roughly 190 square kilometres and is designed to process about 1,400 tonnes of waste daily.
The South Delhi waste collection network will consolidate door-to-door collection from households, businesses and institutions with street sweeping, drain silt, horticulture and domestic hazardous waste, including sanitary waste, company officials said.
Renvion said the initiative marks a transformative shift for the capital’s sanitation infrastructure, introducing an all-electric, BS-VI-compliant primary and secondary collection fleet aimed at cutting emissions and noise in dense residential areas. The company added the project would create more than 2,000 jobs in the zone.
Operations will be backed by a Command & Control Centre using GPS tracking, RFID-tagged vehicles and containers, and weighbridge systems with geofencing and infrared monitoring. Sixty Fixed Compactor Transfer Stations will anchor secondary waste transport.
Delhi Mayor Pravesh Wahi, speaking at the launch event, said 176 new vehicles were being inducted and that five wards — Green Park, Greater Kailash, Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj and Chittaranjan Park — had been prioritized for improved sanitation services. He said source segregation remained essential to the project’s success.
Ishaan Alla, Chief Executive Officer of Renvion Solutions Private Limited, said the project reflected a shift toward integrated, technology-enabled environmental infrastructure and demonstrated the company’s commitment to building systems that recover value for growing cities.
Renvion operates in seven countries, processing more than 6 million tonnes of waste annually across over 30 facilities and generating more than 750 million units of green electricity each year through its Waste-to-Energy operations, the company said.
Singapore-headquartered waste management and circular economy company Blue Planet Environmental Solutions has released its first Annual Sustainability Report 2026, marking a significant milestone in the company’s ESG journey and setting a baseline for performance across FY24 and FY26.
The integrated waste management firm said it processed 8.92 million tonnes of waste across the two reporting years, contributing to an estimated 1.24 million tCO₂e in avoided emissions through initiatives spanning landfill biomining, e-waste recycling and biofuel operations.
Resource recovery scales up
According to the report, legacy waste processed jumped to 5.10 million tonnes in FY26, up from 3.49 million tonnes in FY25. E-waste processed also saw a sharp rise, nearly doubling from 11,552 tonnes to 20,060 tonnes over the same period.
In FY26 alone, the company processed 44,833 tonnes of paper, 24,537 tonnes of plastics, and 6,364 tonnes of iron and steel, along with other material streams, the report noted.
Commenting on the development, Prashant Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, said, “Our first Sustainability Report marks an important step in how we measure our impact. As Blue Planet scales, we believe growth must be matched by transparency, accountability and measurable outcomes. This report establishes our baseline and strengthens our commitment to creating long-term environmental, social and economic value.”
Robust ESG governance framework
The report has been prepared with reference to the GRI Standards 2021 and is supported by a digital ESG data management platform aimed at improving consistency, traceability and review of ESG information, the company said.
Blue Planet also disclosed that it implemented 103 Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP) items, achieving 100% ESAP compliance — verified through independent third-party audits across multiple operations.
Additionally, select ESG indicators underwent independent limited assurance in line with ISAE 3000 (Revised), covering key areas such as energy, water, waste, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, workforce, workplace safety and diversity.
Workforce and road ahead
The company reported a workforce of more than 4,000 employees and workers during the reporting period. Notably, employee participation in training programmes surged from 7,706 in FY25 to 14,318 in FY26.
Looking ahead, Blue Planet said it will prioritise strengthening ESG data governance, climate and resource efficiency, supply-chain ESG oversight, occupational health and safety, and consistent ESG practices across its business verticals.
KCG College of Technology, a unit of the Hindustan Group of Institutions, has signed a transformative Memorandum of Understanding with Sumeet Urban Services (Chennai) V Pvt Ltd, known as Urbaser Sumeet, to deepen industry-academia collaboration in waste management, sustainability and skill development.
The partnership aims to build a long-term, industry-integrated sustainability model that directly engages students in solving real-world urban environmental challenges across Chennai.
Under the agreement, students will participate in clean-up drives, waste management awareness campaigns, sustainability workshops, internships and innovation challenges. The collaboration will also cover hackathons, practical training and professional certification programmes focused on circular economy practices and environmental sustainability.
A key initiative under the MoU is “Edubridge,” a programme designed to support the education and empowerment of children of frontline conservancy workers — a measure both institutions described as central to social inclusion and community impact.
Urbaser Sumeet will also serve as the hygiene partner for major institutional events at KCG, demonstrating best practices in source segregation, solid waste management and urban cleanliness systems.
“Engineering education today must go beyond laboratories and classrooms,” said Anand Jacob Varghese, Chairman, Hindustan Group of Institutions. “When our students walk alongside conservancy workers, manage waste drives and design recycling solutions for their own city, they are not just learning — they are becoming the kind of engineers and citizens Chennai needs.”
Annie Jacob, Director of KCG College of Technology, said embedding Urbaser Sumeet’s operational expertise into campus programmes would give students direct exposure to one of Chennai’s most critical urban services. “From internships in waste vehicle operations to the Edubridge initiative, this collaboration is built around real impact — not just awareness,” she said.
Albert Gleiser Ignacio, Managing Director of Urbaser Sumeet, said lasting change in urban waste management begins with how the next generation thinks about it. “Partnering with KCG gives us the opportunity to bring that ground reality into an academic setting and build a pipeline of professionals genuinely invested in sustainable urban systems,” he said.
The partnership is expected to generate research-oriented projects in waste segregation, recycling systems, circular economy models and smart urban sustainability solutions. Both organisations said they intend to develop a scalable and replicable model for sustainable campus-community partnerships.
The collaboration promotes the principles of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and seeks to foster environmentally conscious practices across the student community and beyond.
HCLFoundation, which drives the corporate social responsibility agenda of HCLTech in India, announced on Monday the expansion of its My Clean City program to Agra, Uttar Pradesh — the first city outside the Noida–Greater Noida belt to receive the initiative since its 2019 launch.
As part of the rollout, the foundation donated 10 e-drain carts, two e-street sweeping machines and one HomoSep robot — a mechanised septic tank cleaning device — to Agra Nagar Nigam, the city’s municipal body. The equipment is intended to reduce hazardous manual work while improving the scale and consistency of urban waste management.
The HomoSep robot, already deployed in Gautam Buddha Nagar, has cleared more than 100,000 litres of sludge across 452 manholes and sewer sites — removing sanitation workers from direct exposure to toxic conditions. The device represents a broader pivot within the program toward mechanisation as a tool for worker safety.
Since its launch, My Clean City has engaged nearly 750,000 citizens through behavioural sensitisation drives and trained more than 61,000 stakeholders on waste management practices. The program has managed over 17,000 tonnes of waste in Noida and Greater Noida, and runs a Waste Champions Club involving more than 2,400 school students.
The initiative also carries a social welfare component. Under its Social Inclusion of Sanitation Workers program, 200 sanitation worker families in Gautam Buddha Nagar receive support across health, education, financial literacy and skill development — a recognition that sustainable sanitation reform extends beyond infrastructure.
Five biogas plants, each processing between 1,500 and 1,800 kg of cow dung daily, have been established in the region as part of complementary clean energy efforts, generating fuel from waste material.
HCLFoundation said the Agra expansion reflects a strategy of replicating proven urban sanitation models in new municipal geographies. The foundation, which reported having positively impacted over 7.5 million lives to date, focuses thematically on education, health and sanitation, skill development, environment, and disaster risk reduction.