Tata Steel collaborated with XLRI Jamshedpur’s SIGMA (Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance) to organize SOCIETAS, the Sustainability Challenge for B-schools at the annual fest – ‘’Ensemble-Valhalla’’. The event was held on  November 19, 2017. SOCIETAS 2017 was launched as a part of Ensemble-Valhalla, XLRI's annual festival. 15 B- Schools participated in the same. More than 6000 people attended. The theme for this year was reducing water consumption at Tata Steel.

The idea of SOCIETAS Sustainability Case Study Challenge emanated from the need to connect B-school students with live sustainability related issues faced by organizations. The case study focused on providing solutions to reduce freshwater consumption at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur to assist the organization to move towards Zero Liquid Discharge and Water Neutrality.

More than 100 teams from B-schools across India participated in an online quiz and the 6 teams (4 teams from XLRI and one each from IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Lucknow) were shortlisted for participating in the case study challenge. The participating teams visited the Tata Steel Works on  November 16, 2017 for a briefing session with the Water Management team headed by Mr Arunava Das, Head, Water Management Tata Steel.

The teams presented their case studies to the two judges, Prof Tata L Raghuram from XLRI and Mr Arunava Das on November 19, 2017 and provided useful insights on strategy, process and technology interventions on the given theme. The winner and runner-up of this case study challenge were ‘’Team Sparks’’ from XLRI Jamshedpur and ‘’Team Quills’’ from IIM Ahmedabad respectively. The awards were presented by Ms Madhulika Sharma, Chief, Corporate Sustainability, Tata Steel.