Zest Outdoor is India’s first green OOH company to generate electricity through billboards

Mustafa Akolawala, Founder, Zest Outdoor Media & Rajneesh Bahl, Business Head, talk about the concept behind the innovative offering and the road ahead Zest Outdoor, a newly launched OOH agency, becomes Asia’s first green OOH asset management company, by introducing

by Anjana Naskar
Published - February 22, 2022
3 minutes To Read
Zest Outdoor is India’s first green OOH company to generate electricity through billboards

Mustafa Akolawala, Founder, Zest Outdoor Media & Rajneesh Bahl, Business Head, talk about the concept behind the innovative offering and the road ahead Zest Outdoor, a newly launched OOH agency, becomes Asia’s first green OOH asset management company, by introducing solar billboards to generate electricity. The Mumbai-based agency has already installed 17 solar billboards in the city and will be launching 17 more in the next two months. Mustafa Akolawala, Founder, Zest Outdoor Media, who has developed the entire concept of solar hoardings, shares insights about the concept behind the innovative offering and the future ahead. He highlights how the agency generates electricity and how it is then helping the Indian Railways. “We are reconstructing hoardings and at the same time, we are also taking care of the environment. We are generating nearly three times the energy that the hoardings are consuming and the generated electricity is then given to the Indian Railways. And that’s how Railways get the energy that we are producing for free. If a brand books a hoarding, which has got solar energy then they are also contributing to the environment", he said.

Mustafa Akolawala
The agency also announced its green mission of reducing carbon emissions by launching 11675 sq. ft advertisement space for 12000 sqft of solar panels with a life of 20 years in Mumbai open for the brands to advertise and earn carbon credits. The project will ensure the installation of the largest number of Solar panels, with each solar panel generating approximately 12,00,000 units, which is equivalent to 3000 tree seedlings grown in 10 years & will cut Co2 emissions by 184 metric tons per annum. “It is 12,000 square feet of solar panels, which we have already installed and nobody has worked on such a concept in India and Asia before and that’s why the Asia Book of Records has awarded us with the title for the largest installation of solar panels on a billboard to supply energy,” reveals Rajneesh Bahl, Business Head, Zest Outdoor Media while adding that it looks different from traditional billboards and also solves a purpose. “It serves the environment even if it is standing on the road. Also, we will be generating approximately 12 lakh units of energy, which is humongous in terms of electricity generation.” Speaking about the challenges, Akolawala shares, “There were many challenges as it was a new concept, there's a lot of to and fro and a lot of learning as well. One of the biggest challenges was how to place a solar panel vertically on a hoarding. After studying and doing an entire architecture, in a certain manner we have placed it vertically. Even the solar company said this is an innovation for them to see how vertical solar panels can be installed and they generate electricity equivalent to placing them horizontally.”
 Rajneesh Bahl
Explaining how solar hoarding will benefit a brand, Bahl says, “Brands will get a hoarding which is aesthetically very beautiful. Bombay has never seen such architecture in the hoarding. So, their brand gets that push. Moreover, the company which is running that brand will also contribute to a greener environment and to lesser CO2 emission, which is generated when the coal is burned and electricity is generated for that. So, we give them carbon credit and we are not charging anything extra for that, it is how they get benefited.”

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