In an exclusive interview with The CEO Magazine, Kamna Hazrati, discusses the evolution of India's climate innovation ecosystem, the growing role of collaboration in driving sustainable growth, why businesses must move climate strategy into the boardroom, and how partnerships between startups, corporates, investors and governments will shape the country's low-carbon future.

TCM: How do you see India's innovation ecosystem evolving to address climate and social challenges? Which sectors do you believe are best positioned to lead this transformation?

Kamna Hazrati: The Indian innovation ecosystem is undergoing a genuine shift. Founders are no longer building climate and impact solutions on the margins of the startup story; they are the story, in many sectors. What's changed in the last three years is the seriousness of the capital, the depth of the corporate partnerships, and the willingness of state governments to build the infrastructure around them.

Across our four AndPurpose Forums in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, we've convened over 1,000 leaders working at the intersection of innovation and impact, and the pattern is clear.

The sectors I'd bet on: circular economy, clean energy and mobility, climate-smart agriculture, water and WASH, and AI applied to climate adaptation rather than general productivity. Each of these has crossed a threshold in India; the operators are no longer pilots, they're businesses with audited outcomes.

The bigger point, though, is that no single sector will lead. India's climate transition will be won or lost in the middle layer, where founders, capital, government, and corporates actually work together. That's where AndPurpose lives, and it's where the real work gets done.

TCM: With climate risks becoming increasingly material for businesses, what should be the top three priorities for Indian companies over the next decade to remain competitive?

Kamna Hazrati: Three things, in order.

First, stop treating climate as a compliance line item. It's a business risk and a capital allocation question. The companies I've watched succeed have moved sustainability out of the CSR department and into the boardroom.

Second, invest in operational adaptation before you invest in narrative. Efficient supply chains, resilient infrastructure, water and energy security- these are unglamorous, but they are what separates companies that survive the next decade from those that don't.

Third, partner earlier and closer to the ground.

Most CSR funding in India today stops at the surface layer: large intermediary NGOs and consulting firms who receive the grants and run the programmes. These organisations do valuable work, but they're not always the ones whose hands are on the problem.

The best CSR and ESG teams I've met in the last two years have started doing something different. They're funding closer to the operator layer, the farmer producer organisation, the waste picker cooperative, the small-town social enterprise, the founder building for their own community. The people who are three steps closer to the outcome than the intermediary.

It's harder. It requires more diligence, more time, and a different kind of trust & relationship. But when corporates fund at that layer, the money moves faster, the outcomes are measurable, and the partnership actually shifts something. That's the model I'd urge more corporates to follow.

TCM: India has emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing startup ecosystems. Do you believe we are equally well positioned to become a global leader in climate innovation? What needs to happen next?

Kamna Hazrati: Yes, and I'd argue India is uniquely positioned, not despite our development challenges but because of them. We are one of the few large economies that has to solve for climate adaptation, energy access, and economic growth simultaneously. Solutions built for India can travel to most of the Global South.

What needs to happen next: patient capital that understands climate timelines, faster commercialisation pathways for research (institutions like ICRISAT and RICH are doing excellent work here), and a lot more collaboration between Indian founders and state governments.

Telangana is a live example; the state has built T-Hub, WE Hub, TGIC, and T-Works into a genuine innovation stack. Very few states in India have anything close to that.

If we can replicate that architecture in more regions, and unlock the right capital behind it, India can become a global hub for climate innovation within this decade.

TCM: As technologies like AI continue to reshape industries, how can business leaders ensure these innovations create measurable environmental value alongside commercial returns?

Kamna Hazrati: The honest answer is that most AI applications today are not creating environmental value; they're consuming it. Data centres are among the fastest-growing sources of energy demand globally, and India is not exempt from that trend.

For AI to genuinely serve climate goals, three things have to happen in tandem. Leaders need to define impact metrics from day one, not retrofit them after deployment. AI should be pointed at problems where the environmental gain is measurable: precision agriculture, grid optimisation, waste routing, materials science, not at productivity tasks that just move work around. And the compute itself needs to run on cleaner energy.

The companies that get this balance right will outcompete those that don't, because regulation and capital are both moving in the same direction, and consumer expectations are catching up.

TCM: Looking ahead, which emerging trends do you believe will have the biggest influence on corporate sustainability strategies over the next five years?

Kamna Hazrati: Three shifts I'm watching closely.

First, sustainability is starting to move from a separate function to a shared operating language across finance, procurement, product, and HR. In the corporate teams I've met across our forums in the last two years, I'm seeing this shift in the room - the CFO who wants to understand carbon accounting alongside the CSR head, the CHRO thinking about climate roles as a talent strategy. It's still early, but the teams where this is happening are meaningfully ahead of those where sustainability still sits in a silo.

Second, the circular economy will move from a CSR theme to a supply chain strategy. When your CFO can measure tonnes recovered per rupee spent, it stops being a campaign and starts being a decision.

Third, climate adaptation, not just mitigation, will finally get the airtime it deserves. Heatwaves, monsoon volatility, and water stress are already affecting business continuity in India. Companies that don't factor this into their five-year planning are underestimating their own risk.