ITC, a leading Indian conglomerate, has consistently demonstrated its commitment to sustainability through its various initiatives and achievements. In its Annual Report for the year 2022-23, ITC highlights several key aspects that showcase its position as a sustainability champion. This article presents ten notable features from the report that illustrate ITC’s dedication to environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and inclusive growth.
1. ESG ratings
During the year, ITC sustained its ‘AA’ rating by MSCI-ESG for the fifth consecutive year, and has also been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index for the third year in a row. Additionally, ITC was rated ‘A-’ at Leadership Level for both Climate Change and Water Security by CDP, which is above the Asia and Global average of ‘C’ for climate change and ‘B’ for water security
2. Carbon, water and solid waste management positive
ITC is the only enterprise in the world of comparable dimensions to have achieved and sustained the three key global indices of environmental sustainability of being ‘water positive’ (for 21 years), ‘carbon positive’ (for 18 years), and ‘solid waste recycling positive’ (for 16 years). This approach has enabled ITC and its businesses to support sustainable livelihoods for more than six million people.
3. Sustainability 2.0 targets
ITC is actively working towards Sustainability 2.0, an agenda which reimagines sustainability under the pressing challenges of climate change and social inequity. Sustainability 2.0 calls for inclusive strategies that can support sustainable livelihoods, pursue newer ways to fight climate change, enable the transition to a net zero economy, work towards ensuring water security for all and create an effective circular economy for post-consumer packaging waste. It also entails protecting and restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services through adoption of nature-based solutions.
4. Promoting climate Smart Agriculture
The Climate Smart Agriculture programme attempts to de-risk farmers from erratic weather events through the promotion and adaptation of climate-smart agriculture premised on dissemination of relevant package of practices, adoption of appropriate mechanisation and provision of institutional services. Currently, 23.4 lakh acres and over 7.4 lakh farmers are covered under the programme, representing an increase of 54% and 64% respectively over previous year. To provide additional support to farmers in dealing with climate risks, 9.5 lakh linkages were facilitated for farmers with six major Government schemes.
5. Use of Renewable energy
As a responsible corporate citizen, ITC has made a commitment to reduce dependence on energy from fossil fuels. Accordingly, all factories incorporate appropriate green features and premium luxury hotels and office complexes continue to be certified at the highest level by either the USGBC or Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). During the year, around 43% (previous year: 42%) of ITC’s total energy requirements were met from renewable sources such as biomass, wind and solar.
6. Green Buildings
ITC is a pioneer in the green building movement, with 40 buildings having received Platinum certification by USGBC/IGBC. In 2020, ITC Windsor’s best practices on carbon management distinguished it as the first hotel in the world to be LEED Zero Carbon certified. Since then, 11 additional ITC Hotels have been certified as LEED Zero Carbon. Further, ITC’s Sankhya data center in Bengaluru became the first data center in the world to be awarded the LEED Zero Carbon certification.
7. Circular Economy
ITC has exceeded its commitment on plastic neutrality for the second consecutive year by collecting and sustainably managing more than 60,000 tonnes of plastic waste across 36 States/Union Territories, which is more than the plastic packaging utilised by ITC.
ITC’s waste recycling programme, ‘WOW – Well Being Out of Waste’, enables the creation of a clean & green environment and promotes sustainable livelihoods for waste collectors. During the year, the programme continued to be executed in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, major towns of Telangana and several districts of Andhra Pradesh. The quantum of dry waste collected during the year was about 64,000 MT from over 1,270 wards. The programme has covered over 2.2 crore citizens in over 55 lakh households, 57 lakh school children and around 2,100 corporates since its inception. It has promoted sustainable livelihood for over 17,750 waste collectors by facilitating an effective collection system in collaboration with Municipal Corporations. In Pune, ITC is supporting a circular economy, based on first-of-its-kind Multi-Layer Plastic (MLP) collection and recycling programme.
The ‘Green Temple’ initiative, powered by ITC’s Social Investments programme ‘Mission Sunehra Kal’, is a closed loop waste management model involving processing of waste generated in temples to provide biogas to the temple kitchens and compost for its gardens. The initiative has expanded to over 950 temples across Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
8. ITC’s FMCG brands adopting sustainable packaging solutions
Fiama, Vivel and Savlon have been frontrunners in adopting sustainable packaging for the soap portfolio. The Fiama and Vivel wrapped soap portfolio has also transitioned to re-cyclable mono material while Savlon soap wrappers now contain 70% recycled plastic in the PET film used. Sustainable materials are being used for in-store merchandising for Fiama and Vivel soaps. Further, Fiama Shower Gel and Handwash bottles are now made with 50% Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) material.
9. Water stewardship
During the year, the area under watershed increased by over 1.36 lakh acres, taking the cumulative coverage area to over 14.7 lakh acres.
In addition, as part of demand management intervention, ITC continues to work with farmers to achieve ‘more crop per drop’ by promoting agronomic practices and micro irrigation techniques targeted towards saving water in cultivation and improving farmer incomes. According to these studies and other research documents, demand management practices promoted by ITC have led to potential water savings to the tune of nearly 780 million cubic metres during the year.
During the year, ITC’s Foods unit at Malur became the first foods processing facility in Asia to be awarded the AWS Platinum level certification, the highest recognition for water stewardship in the world. ITC is in the process of implementing the AWS Standards at other units in high water stress areas and will progressively obtain AWS certification for these sites.
During the year, ITC’s biodiversity conservation initiative covered over 1.5 lakh acres in over 41 districts across 11 states, taking the cumulative area under biodiversity conservation to over 2.9 lakh acres.
10. Afforestation
ITC’s pioneering afforestation initiative through the Social Forestry programme greened over 31,000 acres during the year. Together with ITC’s Farm Forestry programme, this initiative has greened over 10.4 lakh acres till date, and generated about 190 million-person days of employment for rural households, including women, poor tribal and marginal farmers.
