MAM
Green carpet call as BT spotlights India’s most sustainable companies
MUMBAI: India Inc’s ESG stars are set to walk the green carpet. Business Today Multiverse is rolling out a new kind of red carpet green, actually as it launches the inaugural edition of BT India’s Most Sustainable Companies – Summit & Awards 2025. Slated for 6 June in New Delhi, the event puts the spotlight on the companies walking the talk on ESG, sustainability and responsible business.
With the theme ‘Charting India Inc’s Sustainable Future’, the event promises not just trophies, but timely conversations and action plans. Union minister Bhupender Yadav will headline the summit with a special keynote on India’s environmental strategy, setting the tone for a day packed with powerful dialogue.
The awards are backed by a rigorous methodology, led by Careedge ESG Ratings, which evaluated 1,000 listed companies across 11 impact-heavy sectors using publicly available data. The final winners were selected by an expert jury chaired by former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar.
The speaker list reads like a who’s who of India’s sustainability and policy ecosystem. From Pepsico’s Yashika Singh and Zomato’s Anjalli Kumar to JSW’s Prabodha Acharya, Mahindra’s Abanti Sankaranarayanan, and SEBI’s Pramod Rao, leaders from corporates, think tanks, and regulatory bodies will tackle how sustainability can shift from boardroom buzzword to operational backbone.
Panel discussions will feature experts like ORF’s Nilanjan Ghosh, CEEW’s Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Avaana’s Anjali Bansal and Swapna Gupta, ISA’s Joshua Wycliffe, Diageo’s Ashish Parikh, and legal minds like Meyyappan Nagappan (Trilegal) and Amit Kapur (JSA), offering multidisciplinary takes on climate strategy, regulation, investment, and innovation.
Supporting the summit are sustainability stalwarts: L&T (Green Partner), Pepsico (Sustainable Progress Partner), Diageo (CPG Sustainability Partner), along with KREDL and RVNL as associate partners.
The evening will culminate in the BT India’s Most Sustainable Companies Awards and the unveiling of a special Business Today edition centred on the campaign: ‘Sustainability is no longer an option, it is the only way forward.’
For India Inc, the message is clear going green isn’t just good optics. It’s the only playbook that matters now.
MAM
ASCI study uncovers how Gen Alpha navigates ads in endless digital feeds
‘What the Sigma?’ ethnographic report maps blurred boundaries between content and commerce for 7–15-year-olds.
MUMBAI: Gen Alpha isn’t scrolling through the internet, they’re living rent-free inside its never-ending dopamine drip, and the ads have already moved in next door. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Academy, partnering with Futurebrands Consulting, has published ‘What the Sigma?’, an immersive ethnographic study that maps how Indian children aged 7–15 (Generation Alpha) consume, interpret and live alongside media and commercial messaging in a hyper-digital environment.
The research draws on in-home interviews, sibling and peer conversations, and discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors, psychologists, marketers and kidfluencers across six cities. It examines not only what children watch but how algorithms, content creators, peers and parents shape their relationship with the constant stream of shorts, vlogs, gameplay, memes, sponsored posts and ‘kid-ified’ adult material.
Five core themes emerged:
- Discontinuous Generation, Gen Alpha is not growing up alongside the internet, they are growing up inside it. Cultural references, humour, aesthetics and language sync globally in real time, often leaving adults functionally illiterate in their children’s world. A reference that lands instantly for a 10-year-old in Mumbai or Visakhapatnam feels opaque or disjointed to most parents.
- Authority Vacuum, Parents and teachers frequently lose cultural fluency in digital spaces. The algorithm responsive, inexhaustible and perfectly attuned to preferences becomes the most attentive presence in many children’s daily lives. Rules around screen time feel increasingly difficult to enforce when adults cannot fully see or understand the content landscape.
- Digital as Society, Online and offline no longer exist as separate realms, they form one continuous reality. The phone is not a tool children pick up; it is the primary social environment they inhabit.
- Great Media Mukbang, Content flows as an ambient, boundary-less, multi-sensorial stream. Entertainment, advertising, commerce, gameplay, memes and vlogs merge into one undifferentiated feed. The line between active choice and passive absorption has largely collapsed.
- Blurred Ad Recognition, Children aged 7–12 typically recognise only the most overt advertising formats. Influencer promotions, gaming integrations and vlog sponsorships often register as organic entertainment. Children aged 13–15 show greater ad literacy but remain highly susceptible to narrative-integrated, passion-driven and emotionally resonant brand messaging. Discernment remains low across the board in a non-stop stream.
ASCI CEO and secretary general Manisha Kapoor said, “ASCI Academy’s study is an investigation into the content life of Generation Alpha not to judge them but to understand them. Their cultural reference points seem disjointed from those of earlier generations. Insights on how they perceive advertising is the first step towards building more responsible engagement frameworks, given that they are the youngest media consumers in our country right now.”
Futurebrands Consulting founder and director Santosh Desai added, “While earlier generations have been exposed to digital media, for this generation it is the world they inhabit. This report explores not only what they watch but how they are being shaped by algorithms, content and advertising.”
The study proposes four adaptive, principles-led pathways:
- Universal signposting of commercial intent using design principles that make advertising recognisable even to young audiences.
- Ecosystem-wide responsibility shared among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents.
- Future-ready safeguards built directly into children’s content experiences rather than as optional background settings.
- Formal media and advertising literacy embedded in school curricula to teach age-appropriate understanding of persuasion and commercial intent.
In a feed that never pauses, Gen Alpha isn’t merely watching content, they’re swimming in an ocean where entertainment, commerce and identity swirl together. The real question isn’t whether they can spot an ad; it’s whether the adults building the ocean can agree on where the lifeguards should stand.
