Introduction:
While sustainable agriculture has been a hot theme among academics, non profits and activists, there has not been much research/press attention to the work done by big corporate. If we define sustainable agriculture to mean anything which lowers resource use/pesticide consumption/improves farm fertility, then many Indian companies are doing yeoman’s work, and attracting stellar stock market valuations. For example, Jain Irrigation(drip irrigation, food processing), M&M/DCM Shriram/Escorts(tractors), Tata Chemicals(fertilizers), Amul(helping farmers improve milch stock productivity) etc. This aspect is often not highlighted.
Objective:
Explore whether sustainable agriculture facilitating businesses enjoy better profits/mcap/returns, and the other benefits from this. List out business models/companies which make sense from triple bottomline.
Methodology:
- Identify agri business companies throughout the value chain/supply chain
- Analyze their business segments/practices/models
- Design a questionnaire for those companies.
- Use CMIE Prowess and other databases to crunch numbers for those companies, and for economic aggregates relating to India.
- List and explain business models helpful to sustainable agriculture.
- Outline the various Government policies(subsidies, tax breaks, capital grants, R&D) for them.
- Name the main Indian companies which help sustainable agriculture, and those harm it.
- Suggest best practices for companies to market & monetize their green activities. For example,Program of Activities under Kyoto Protocol to get carbon credits.
- Annual Reports/Websites of Indian agri business companies.
- Investor presentations/interviews/reports.
- GOI websites
- National/International organizations & reports(like FAO).
- Academic research
- Expert interviews(equity analysts, professors, public policy experts, investor relations)
There is another comparison that you may consider. You can analyze some of the marketing campaigns of Indian corporates and see if they focus on their green initiatives or not.
ReplyDeleteIf amongst two similar companies with same magnitude of green initiatives, one with better image to support sustainability gets higher valuations, you can put a claim for promoting green initiatives in front of Indian corporates.
A new startup specializing in making campaigns to promote green initiatives can be a good business opportunity
Additionally, you can also consider doing some primary research from consumers on awareness about green initiatives of the company and its impact on valuation
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