Green for Good: How We're Supporting Sustainability Efforts in India

When a community embraces sustainability, it can reap multiple benefits: gainful employment for vulnerable populations, more resilient local ecosystems and a cleaner environment.

This Earth Day, we're announcing our four latest corporate social responsibility investments in India, home to more than 2,700 NVIDIANs. These initiatives are part of our multi-year efforts in the country, which focus on investing in social innovation, job creation and climate action.

Last year, we funded projects that aided migrant workers affected by COVID-19, increased green cover, furthered sustainable waste management processes and improved livelihoods through job creation.

The organizations we're supporting this year are:

Foundation for Ecological Security

This project will build 10 water-harvesting structures and a dozen systems for diversion-based irrigation, a technique to irrigate farms by redirecting water from rivers or streams. It will benefit around 4,000 individuals from vulnerable migrant households by increasing vegetative cover and the irrigation potential of the land. The foundation will also create community-based initiatives to augment rural household income through the sale of non-timber forest products such as medicinal plants, leaves or honey.

Impact Guru Foundation

We're supporting the organization Grow-Trees' efforts to plant local, non-invasive trees in the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, home to dozens of endangered Asiatic elephants. Located in the northeastern state of Jharkhand, this project will employ tribal women and other villagers to plant more than 26,000 trees to improve the environment and reinstate elephant migration routes.

Naandi Foundation

Hyderabad-based Naandi is securing sustainable livelihoods for tribal communities by encouraging the organic farming of coffee and other crops. We're funding this Rockefeller Foundation Award-winning project to transform depleted soil into carbon-rich landscapes, improving plant health for 3,000 acres of coffee farms and boosting coffee quality to a gourmet product that boosts the income of thousands of farming families.

Energy Harvest Charitable Trust

Energy Harvest aims to reduce open-field burning by connecting small farmers with machinery owners and straw buyers, paving paths for alternative energy sources using agricultural waste. The initiative - which will use AI and edge devices to identify farm fires and track local emission levels - will create dozens of employment opportunities, benefit more than 100 farmers and improve air quality by saving hundreds of acres from burning.

NVIDIA has previously funded projects in India that provided education programs for underprivileged youth, taught computer skills to young women, supported people with disabilities and opened 50 community libraries in remote areas. Many of these initiatives have centered in communities near our three offices - Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.

Learn more about corporate social responsibility at NVIDIA.

LINK:	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/04/22/sustainability-investments-in...
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