Arun Varma is a communicator by profession. He has spent more than a decade in mainstream journalism in India. With focus on business and economy, he has held several positions with media organizations such as The Telegraph, India Today and Press Trust of India, and Doordarshan including that of the Editor. He turned to development communication in 2001 by raising the question of sustainable development in big societies. Since then, he has been working on developing communication tools for capacity building and raising awareness about sustainable development.
His initial work in this area was done at Cambridge University, UK. In 2003, Arun Varma joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as their Advisor (Communications and Outreach). Mr. Varma approaches capacity and awareness building about sustainability issues among the stakeholders of the civil society at two levels. First one is a continuing campaign through preventive environmental management. In sustainable development issues, prevention is a more effective and proactive approach contrary to the generally followed reactive approach of containment (of ecological and environmental disasters). Schools and Youth form one of the frontline target groups. Second level is the campaign through corporations as a corporate social responsibility. Corporates, moneyed citizens they are, need to be sensitized about the need of a sustainable business practice with special emphasis on a “triple bottom-line” – economical, environmental and social approach.