Mahindra Group – Niksa Khemka – 2025
Summary
Niksa developed integrated sustainability strategies and solutions to enhance Mahindra’s sustainability performance, climate risk adaptation, workforce resilience, and operational efficiency.
Goals
Mahindra Rise operates across 20+ industries and multiple geographies in India. As a Climate Corps Fellow at Mahindra Group, Niksa Khemka?s project aimed to embed sustainability across strategy, operations, and reporting by identifying actionable solutions for heat adaptation, EV adoption, sustainability education, data reporting, and ESG alignment. The larger goal was to enable Mahindra to reduce environmental impact, strengthen governance, and enhance workforce resilience across its diverse business units.
Solutions
To achieve these goals, Niksa conducted comparative analyses, lifecycle assessments, and policy reviews, and mapped best practices across sectors. She designed heat-adaptation frameworks, sustainability training modules, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based EV strategies, integrating regulatory incentives and operational guidelines. Collaborating with cross-functional teams, she standardized reporting templates aligned with Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR), and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and created actionable recommendations for supplier engagement, circularity, and climate policy integration. Obstacles included limited executive visibility, competing priorities, and fragmented data. Leveraging the work of previous Climate Corps fellows, internal data, and global benchmarks helped overcome these challenges and produce practical, scalable solutions.
Potential Impact
The implemented strategies can drive measurable reductions in Mahindra’s operational carbon footprint, with lifecycle emissions cut by up to 73% for EVs under current grids and up to 80% under projected renewable scenarios. Heat-adaptation frameworks could enhance workforce productivity and reduce heat-related operational risks across geographies. Standardized ESG data reporting aligned with CDP, BRSR, and GRI will ensure consistent, auditable performance metrics, enabling data-driven decision-making. Sustainability training and supplier engagement frameworks will accelerate adoption of circular practices, regulatory compliance, and strategic alignment with national climate targets and UN SDGs, positioning Mahindra as a sector leader in integrated sustainable operations.
