ECO ECHO: (From top) An eri stole by Deepika Govind; Vijay Sharma with his “bambike” and a group that offset its carbon footprints at a camp near Delhi

When Vivek Sridhar moved to Bangalore three years ago, finding a flat or getting the children admitted to school did not pose a problem. What Sridhar couldn’t find was someone to clean his car. “Also, there was an acute water shortage in our apartment complex. So car cleaning became a fortnightly ritual,” remembers the business analyst at Kingfisher Airlines.

Sridhar saw an eco-friendly business opportunity in this. “I had read about a company in Britain that offered waterless car washes. I decided to import the method to India,” recalls Sridhar, who quit his job the following year and set up Prowash India — a car wash service that did not use a drop of water. Currently, the company has 500 customers on its rolls and does 7,000 car washes a month. “We use non-hazardous chemicals. With each waterless wash, we save 50 litres of water,” claims Sridhar.

For urban Indians, going green is no longer only about planting trees, switching off the lights and eating organic vegetables. Being environment friendly has turned innovative with out-of-the-box services and products — from bamboo bicycles to a silk spun such that the silkworm later flies to freedom — hitting the market. “As the global go-green movement becomes big, people are thinking beyond the basics of environment protection,” says Sridhar.

Take the case of the adventure holiday camp that Tejbir Anand runs at Dhauj on the outskirts of Delhi. Here, guests get an environmentally guilt-free holiday, as they offset the carbon footprints they create while vacationing. “We calculate the carbon footprints generated by every guest visiting our camp. This includes the time spent on the computer for booking tickets, travel and the use of LPG and generators,” explains Anand, proprietor, Holiday Moods Adventures. Each guest then plants enough trees to offset his carbon footprints. About 62 groups have planted trees around Dhauj so far, claims Anand.

The trend has been gaining popularity in India in the last few years, believes Anand. “Issues like global warming and water scarcity are beginning to touch everyone’s life. So any new eco-friendly practice is catching the fancy of people,” he says.

The increase in Mumbai’s vehicular population had been irking V. Ramesh for long. But when Ramesh visited Barcelona three years ago — where bicycles are a major mode of transport — he decided to quit his job as CEO of a brokerage firm and work on popularising cycling in Mumbai.

Ramesh founded Ecomove Solutions Pvt. Ltd last year, which leases bicycles to residential complexes around the city. “The cycles are parked at the complex and any resident can use them for short trips, like going grocery shopping or for a haircut,” says Ramesh. Ecomove takes care of the maintenance of the bicycles — so people can use them without the hassle of looking after them. “The idea is to popularise cycling and reduce the dependence on motorised transport,” he adds. Ramesh now plans to lease his bicycles to educational institutions and factories around Mumbai.

If Ramesh has been trying to popularise cycling as an eco-friendly way of getting around, Vijay Sharma, a designer at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Bangalore, has come up with a cycle that is eco-friendly in itself. He has made a bamboo bicycle. “I replaced 3.5kg of steel tubes, traditionally used in bicycles, with bamboo ones. If bicycles are made this way, it will reduce carbon footprints in a big way,” says Sharma.

In fact, in 2009, Sharma took part in the Tour of the Nilgiris, a 900km cycling tour of the Western Ghats organised by Chennai-based bicycle manufacturer TI Cycles, on his bamboo bicycle. What’s more, TI Cycles is now designing and manufacturing these bamboo two-wheelers. “We will roll out these bicycles as a select edition product,” says Veeresh I.V., designer at TI Cycles.

Other companies too are finding new ways of going green. In July last year, Vodafone announced the launch of a solar powered mobile phone. Wipro Infotech has been selling eco-friendly desktops and laptops — which, the company claims, are free from carcinogenic materials — for over three years.

Corporate advertising, too, is going green. A Mumbai-based direct advertising firm, Condor Advertising, offers eco-friendly hangers, through which companies can hang their ads in the consumer’s cupboard. The “hangvertisers” — made from recycled cardboard — carry a company advertisement and are distributed free to dry cleaners, who then pass them on to the end consumer. “We have tied up with 47 dry cleaners across Mumbai and supply 70,000 hangers to them every month,” says Somesh Kamra, director, Condor Advertising. Five of the company’s clients, including S. Kumar’s Reid & Taylor and Club Mahindra — are advertising through its hangvertisers.

For those who believe that big, neon billboards cause ecological damage, an Ahmedabad-based advertising firm offers the Look Walker — a walking, battery-operated, LED-lit billboard. “These billboards are strapped onto our employees like a rucksack. They then move around malls, multiplexes and airports,” says Mukesh Jani, proprietor, Accurate Network. He adds that his ad firm charges Rs 2,500 a day for each billboard and currently has 50 clients — including Vodafone, Aircel, Idea and Unilever.

And if walking billboards are not enough, there are bicycling billboards. Last October, Accurate Network, launched its AccuRide Ad Bikes — where a billboard is built as a roof of a bicycle. “Enquiries are pouring in. We will soon roll out the product across all metro cities,” says Jani.

The fashion industry is also turning eco-conscious. Silk is made without boiling the silkworm to death, cotton comes in an organic avatar and a Delhi-based jewellery designer sells jewellery made out of recycled silver. Being a fashion designer had always irked Deepika Govind’s consciousness — till the Bangalore-based designer discovered eri, or Ahimsa silk. “Eri cocoons are open-ended, allowing the moth to fly to freedom once the spinning is complete. I only work with eri silk now — it keeps my conscious clear,” says Govind, who designs shawls and stoles made of processed eri silk.

Mumbai-based designer Anita Dongre, who launched an eco-friendly clothing line at the Wills India Fashion Week in 2007, believes India’s globally-travelled youth is driving the demand for innovative eco-conducive products. “Young globe-trotting professionals are seeing green innovations worldwide. They are demanding them here in India,” says Dongre.

Looks like they are getting them too.