Virtusa wins Bronze at Green Awards

Virtusa Corporation was presented the Bronze trophy of commendation in the 'Private Institute' category at the National Green Awards in Colombo recently.

The award was presented in recognition of Virtusa's Code Green initiative, making Virtusa one of the first IT companies in Sri Lanka to win a 'green' award.

"Virtusa, a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), has institutionalised sustainability in its business practices and made numerous efforts under its Code Green initiative including, but not limited to, climate change management, reducing per capita energy consumption, vehicle transport and air travel, managing e-waste and segregated waste, and adhering to a green procurement policy," a spokesman for Virtusa said.

"The company's sustainability program aims at 'reducing its environmental footprint with ethical maturity, respect and dignity to all'. Virtusa hopes that its initiatives will encourage other IT companies to follow suit and strive to position Sri Lanka as an emerging 'Green' IT/BPO destination," he said.

Chairman and CEO of Virtusa, Kris Canekeratne said, "Our approach is to reduce the environmental footprint of our services delivered to clients by leveraging tools and processes to improve quality metrics such as 'reduce cycle time', 'increase right-first-time' and 'better reuse'."

Director of Virtusa, Denver de Zylva who heads the company's Environment Health and Safety Program said, "Our core philosophy is to 'do more, and better with less' in a sustainable manner, directly contributing to consistent reduction of our environmental footprint across all products and services delivered to our clients."

Former chairman of the Central Environment Authority, Charitha Herath said, "Companies must consider environment sustainability as a core business strategy. Virtusa has been highly supportive of CEA's initiative and has been able to achieve significant reduction of overheads by thinking and acting green. I believe Virtusa has set an example and a benchmark for IT companies in Sri Lanka in sustainability."