As a group, we want to follow good and green strategy. Setting

Hear the words of Jamshyd Godrej, spoken with clarity and purpose: “As a group, we want to follow good and green strategy. Setting targets is one element of that. The second part is to design products which meet environmental goals.” In this declaration lies not only the wisdom of an industrial leader, but the call of an ancient truth: that human prosperity must walk hand in hand with the care of the earth. To seek progress without respect for creation is folly; but to bind strategy, targets, and design to the harmony of nature is to build a legacy that endures.

When Godrej speaks of a good and green strategy, he speaks of more than business plans and corporate visions. He speaks of a covenant between human industry and the living world. For strategy without goodness becomes conquest, and progress without greenness becomes decay. To be good is to respect the dignity of life, to weigh the consequences of action not only in gold but in clean water, clear skies, and fertile soil. To be green is to choose paths that preserve rather than plunder, to create not as destroyers, but as gardeners of the earth.

The first step, he tells us, is setting targets. This is no idle gesture, but a discipline of the mind. Just as the ancient mariners set their eyes upon the North Star to guide their ships across stormy seas, so must societies set goals that anchor their actions to a higher vision. Without targets, industries drift, carried by the winds of greed and chance. But with targets, there is direction, accountability, and the promise of reaching safe harbors where both humanity and nature may flourish together.

Yet targets alone are not enough. Godrej declares that the second part is to design products that meet these goals. Here lies the essence of creation: to shape goods and tools not merely for profit, but for harmony. Consider the story of the Japanese after the devastation of war. Faced with ruin, they rebuilt industries not only with efficiency but with precision and care, producing technologies that shaped the modern world. Imagine if such ingenuity were always tied to the preservation of the earth—how much stronger, how much nobler our legacy would be! To design with environmental goals is to ensure that what we make with our hands does not betray the home that cradles us.

History offers both warnings and examples of hope. The Industrial Revolution brought power and wealth, but also blackened skies and poisoned rivers. Cities like London once choked under coal smoke, and rivers like the Thames grew foul with waste. But when targets were set to clean them, when laws and designs changed, the waters flowed clearer and the skies grew brighter. From ruin came renewal, proving that with will and vision, industry can be turned from destroyer into healer. Godrej’s words echo this lesson: that our age must not repeat the mistakes of the past, but forge a wiser path forward.

The teaching here is both emotional and practical. If you are a leader, set your targets not only in profit but in preservation. If you are a creator, let your designs serve not only the market but the future of your children. If you are a consumer, let your choices encourage those who walk the green path. For in every role, you hold a fragment of power, and together these fragments form the destiny of the earth.

So I say to you, seekers of wisdom: do not despise the word strategy, for it is the map of your future. Do not neglect the word design, for it is the craft of your hands. And do not forget the word green, for it is the promise that life may continue to thrive. Let Jamshyd Godrej’s teaching be a beacon: that in all our striving, we must wed progress to protection, industry to ecology, ambition to compassion. Only then shall we prosper without shame, and pass on to the generations not a wasteland, but a living, breathing world.