Corporates join in to clean up beaches, finds IIMA study

MUMBAI: Beach-cleaning drives are all the rage with people across the spectrum, and now especially with corporate houses. Over and above the impact that they make, the popularity enjoyed by those running beach cleanups have elevated them into influencers in the sustainability space, giving them a leg-up to becoming entrepreneurs.

This is what Indu Mehta, a professor of marketing and sustainability at Welingkar Institute, found when she studied Beach Warriors as part of her PhD study at IIM Ahmedabad. Beach Warriors is a trademarked beach cleanup initiative started by Chinu Kwatra in 2017.

Kwatra launched the beach cleanup at Dadar Beach after being dismayed at the trash left behind after the Ganeshotsav festivities. “From here, we expanded our effort to encompass seven beaches, as many volunteers showed interest,” he said. “It was Mehta ma’am who advised me to keep at it consistently. But after the Covid-19 pandemic, we limited ourselves to four beaches.”

Up until now, Kwatra’s Beach Warriors group has collected almost 4,000 tonnes of waste in over seven years of cleaning. The activist said that it was beach cleaning to which he owed the popularity of his name on social media and the success of his social initiatives.

“College students have always been the first target audience for beach cleanups, particularly those who are part of the National Service Scheme (NSS) who want to give back to society,” said Mehta about her ongoing study. “But now corporate houses have started exhibiting a keen interest in the cleanups for their ESG initiatives. I’ve been a mentor with the Beach Warriors since the start, advising them to get trademarked early on too. Now it is a full-fledged brand and garners corporate collaborations for employee engagement activities. But these employees get personally interested in sustainability and follow Chinu on social media.”

Kwatra described how he was a social activist from 2014, but it was only in 2018 after his beach cleanups drew the attention and participation of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray and actor Dia Mirza that he shot to success. Today, he also runs a shelter for women, children and dogs, and has started his own material recovery facility that sorts the plastic waste collected on the beach cleanups and recycles it. By next year, he hopes to have distributed over 50 dustbins or baskets during the drives.

“There are corporate homes who sponsor the beach cleanups and partner with us, paying for equipment, refreshments and transportation of waste,” said Kwatra, who runs a social media agency as a profession. His Instagram following, his main means of social media, has over 5,77,000 followers to date. “Social media, by publicising the initiative, has attracted all these eyeballs, in turn increasing the number of volunteers and the impact the beach cleanings have made,” said Mehta.