Women's empowerment means empowering women on multiple dimensions: economically, psychologically, socially, and politically. Historically, women have suffered from disproportionately reduced access to resources and opportunities. Financial literacy and inclusion are especially important to overcome the dependence of women on their husbands. This aspect is more important in situations where the husband-wife relationship was strained for a variety of reasons. Shikha Mittal founded Be.artsy to empower women to speak up and manage their finances, with financial literacy and consequent empowerment acting as the impetus for overall women's empowerment. Experiences of sexual harassment at the workplace and domestic violence prompted Mittal to design and offer programs to corporates. These programs aimed to address the above problems through customized training programs for employees of these companies, which comprised Be.artsy's business to business (B2B) markets. Although these programs were supplemented with street plays and interventions in colleges, the B2B channel was the primary channel Be.artsy used to reach out to women; it generated revenue and created an impact. Be.artsy chose financial literacy as the key pillar for women's empowerment and drove its programs through tie-ups with institutions. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mittal launched an online program, Be Your Own Lakshmi (BYOL), that imparted financial literacy education. With free initial sessions that demonstrated the importance of financial planning and promotions through social media, BYOL had garnered some traction, with many people wanting to sign up for the paid BYOL offering. However, Mittal's desire to use BYOL as a vehicle to speed up the achievement of her vision of empowering millions of women remained unfulfilled. She needed to choose the right approach to scale BYOL, but the dilemma remained: Should she scale BYOL using the B2B or business to consumer (B2C) route?

The Organic Mandya (OM) case explores the journey of Madhu Chandan, a successful entrepreneur who gave up his comfortable life in the United States to return to his home state, Karnataka, in India and set up OM, a first-of-its-kind organic movement led by farmers in Mandya. Over the years leading up to his return to his roots, Chandan had observed certain disturbing trends such as increasing farmer suicides in Karnataka, the reduced life expectancy of the rural population, and large-scale migration of youth to cities for employment opportunities. He began to delve deeper to understand the problems faced by these farmers. He observed that the adoption of chemical farming in Mandya over the past few decades had led to an increase in lifestyle diseases and reduced life expectancy-a phenomenon hitherto unheard of within rural communities. OM was born out of Chandan's journey to change consumer and farmer behavior and encourage farmers to revert to traditional and more ecologically friendly farming practices. The case examines the challenges that Chandan encountered in convincing farmers to revert to sustainable farming practices, while simultaneously attempting to change the mindset of urban consumers by encouraging them to seek health-promoting, organically grown farm produce. This case will help students understand the traits that an entrepreneur driving a socially oriented business and led by a strong sense of purpose will need for success, as well as the challenges and opportunities in building a community-based enterprise. The case is set in August 2020, when Chandan was forced to reflect on the sustainability of OM's business model in the rapidly changing social context and increasing competition from big players. Consumer preference for online shopping for foodstuff was making it imperative for Chandan to continue to innovate OM's business model and to identify new opportunities to continue to stay relevant.

The vision of Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, in spearheading climate leadership in India, focusing on the proactive steps taken in steel manufacturing by Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel Limited (MSSSPL) through science-based targets is presented. Case set in 2021, when businesses in India and countries around the world were recovering from the unprecedented setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the October 2021 COP26 Glasgow Summit, India had committed to achieve net zero by 2070, further reinforcing the need for corporates to take massive steps in reducing their carbon footprints. Anand Mahindra and Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Mahindra Group, believe that there is an opportunity for the Group to do more to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The case illustrates the risks posed by climate change to businesses and the business benefits of setting science-based targets that can spur increased innovation potential, greater resilience against regulatory uncertainties, improved credibility among the new generation of investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders, as well as better competitive advantage. Three years after committing to the SBTi, climate-induced challenges had become even more critical, necessitating swifter action to cut emissions across the value chain. The case discusses GHG emissions across 3 scopes, highlighting the value chain activities that contribute to Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. MSSSPL has committed to reduce their emissions by 35% by 2030. Some of the measures adopted by MSSSPL to meet their GHG emissions reduction commitments to the SBTi such as improvements in raw material usage in various manufacturing processes, energy-efficient technologies to cumulatively reduce specific electricity and oil consumption, water use management, and waste management measures through a circular economy strategy. What more needs to be done by the company to keep up the momentum?

This case illustrates the efforts of the Mahindra Group's Agri Business and Farm Equipment divisions to drive sustainability-oriented action aimed at improving the lives of rural communities and preparing them to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It briefly describes the far-reaching consequences of climate-related disasters in terms of loss of food and nutrition security; livelihood; crop production; and losses in manufacturing, especially in developing countries such as India that are highly reliant on agriculture. The approach adopted by the Mahindra Group to tackle challenges in agriculture, such as water scarcity, food wastage, and energy-intensive practices, through affordable and energy- and resource-efficient technology is discussed. There are intense deliberations among the leaders of the Mahindra Group businesses about the way forward and concerns regarding climate-friendly innovations, which, from the perspective of the Chairman, ultimately translates into creatively reconciling the conflict between environmental goals and profitability goals. The Chairman and the Chief Sustainability Officer are firm in their belief that there are immense business opportunities in aggressively implementing sustainable practices. The leadership of the Mahindra Group is deliberating on how they can collaborate with rural communities and devise ways to improve farm-to-market linkages, reduce the costs of farm inputs, and scale up energy-efficient technology.

In February 2021, the managing director of The Shakti Plastics Industries (Shakti) was facing challenges related to the Indian government’s announcement of a complete ban by 2022 on single-use plastic—a key item that Shakti had been recycling through technological innovations over the previous few decades. The company was eager to support the government’s vision of enabling a circular plastics economy. However, changes in the regulatory landscape were likely to impact millions of people who were directly or indirectly employed in the unorganized Indian plastic waste sector. The time frame for plastic waste processors and manufacturers to adapt to the changes was short, particularly during the pandemic-induced resurgence of single-use plastic in the form of medical waste. Moreover, there were several other challenges, including price volatility of plastic waste, influenced by disruptive intermediaries in the supply chain; low awareness levels among consumers about waste segregation at the source; and a lack of eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic. Shakti needed to make decisions to maintain and advance its competitiveness in the plastic waste recycling sector, in line with the government’s proposed vision for a circular plastic economy.

In February 2021, the managing director of The Shakti Plastics Industries (Shakti) was facing challenges related to the Indian government's announcement of a complete ban by 2022 on single-use plastic-a key item that Shakti had been recycling through technological innovations over the previous few decades. The company was eager to support the government's vision of enabling a circular plastics economy. However, changes in the regulatory landscape were likely to impact millions of people who were directly or indirectly employed in the unorganized Indian plastic waste sector. The time frame for plastic waste processors and manufacturers to adapt to the changes was short, particularly during the pandemic-induced resurgence of single-use plastic in the form of medical waste. Moreover, there were several other challenges, including price volatility of plastic waste, influenced by disruptive intermediaries in the supply chain; low awareness levels among consumers about waste segregation at the source; and a lack of eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic. Shakti needed to make decisions to maintain and advance its competitiveness in the plastic waste recycling sector, in line with the government's proposed vision for a circular plastic economy.