Tulsi Tanti

Tulsi Tanti is an Indian businessman, and chairman and managing director of Suzlon Energy, a global wind-power company. He was born in Rajkot, in the Indian state of Gujarat, and is seen as a leading figure in the fight for using sustainable energy sources.

Tanti started off as manager of a small textiles company in Surat. The company was in a constant battle with rising electricity prices and frequent outages of power, and profits suffered as a result. Tanti began researching alternatives to supplying his company with power from the national grid, and in 1994 he purchased two wind turbines. Despite a large initial cost, the economic advantages of the move quickly became clear, and he soon began to tell others of his solution, seeing the potential for India, as a developing industrial nation, to lead the way in the use of energy from environmentally friendly sources. Interest in wind-powered factories developed quickly, and Tanti and his 3 brothers seized the opportunity to found Suzlon Energy and moved to the city of Pune, near Bombay.

However, with no experience of the energy industry, Suzlon Energy were forced to work initially with German company Südwind in a distributer role. When Südwind went bankrupt, however, Tanti, as a partner, was in prime position to swoop in and acquire much of the business’ assets and technologies.

The company revolutionised the way the industry functioned; instead of different stages of production being shared between different companies, Suzlon manufactured, installed and maintained all their wind turbines themselves. They also allowed customers to use wind power without having to own a turbine on their own land, instead allowing the customer to buy the output of a specific wind turbine in a wind park (a large collection of turbines in one place).

As business grew, Tanti sold his textiles company to focus on Suzlon Energy, and was rewarded for his commitment when the company’s sales quadrupled to $131million in 2002.

However, the business venture has not been without its problems. Many of these problems can be attributed to issues within the wind power industry as a whole. One such issue is the use of large areas of land for wind farms; Suzlon encountered problems when trying to buy land in rural India, as landowners began to demand incredibly high prices when they realised the value of land in prime spots for wind farms.

Today, Suzlon Energy is the largest wind turbine manufacturer in Asia, and the 5th largest in the world, owning factories in the USA and China, as well as several across India. Tulsi Tanti has been honoured for his work promoting sustainable energy sources on numerous occasions; he was named ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 2006’ by Ernst + Young, ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME Magazine in 2007, and the United Nations Environment Program named him ‘Champion of the Earth’ in 2009.

Sulzon Energy and Tulsi Tanti’s worth have dropped significantly as a result of the global recession in the last year. However, a quote from Tanti in TIME magazine in 2007 suggests that he has a philosophical attitude to his business:
“Yes, green business is good business. But it's not just about making money. It's about being responsible."

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