Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. –UN, Sustainable Development Goals
By Rusen Kumar
MUMBAI: Vedanta Board has 12.5% representation of women and has set a target to reach a level of 33% by 2020, Vedanta Group’s Sustainable Development Report for the year 2015-16, revealed. Vedanta Limited, India’s leading diversified natural resources company. Group has also established gender diversity target for Business Level.
Vedanta has released recently its 8th Sustainable Development Report for its group companies, which is prepared based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 – ‘in accordance’- Core guidelines and is mapped to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Women representation in total employee strength is 9.4% in the year 2015-16 as compare to 8.6% for the year 2014-15.
The progress in gender equality in the corporate sector is moving forward. Women hold up half the sky, if empowered, they have the ability to not just lead the society, but also contribute to economic activities of the country.
“We represent one of the highest numbers of women in senior management in the industry.”, Vedanta said.
“Our board has 12.5% representation of women and has set a target to reach over 33% by 2020. This diversity focus is visible across hierarchies and functions.” Report said.
As a new target, Continue to focus on the same diversity objective of 15% women hiring, more than 15% of female professionals join the group and has target to focus on the same diversity objective of hiring 15% for the year 2016-17.
A target of having 25% of women representation at Board Level by 2016, Vedanta said, “In this regard, although we have not met our target for women directors, we continue to build on diversity in leadership roles and have made a number of senior female appointments during the year 2015-16.”
“To enable women to work with dignity and without fear, a sexual harassment prohibition policy and sexual harassment committee is in place in each business.”, it added.
In the year 2014-15, 184 female employees have taken parental leaves. 
Vedanta has recently announced an enhanced parental leave policy for its employees. Building upon its employee friendly policies, the company’s maternity leave has been enhanced to 26 weeks. The company has also introduced an adoption leave for 12 weeks and a paternity leave for 1 week. It is said that the new parental leave policy is best-in-class in the industry.
“In a male dominated sector like mining, five women in Vedanta Resources’ Aluminium Manufacturing plant in Lanjigarh (Odisha) are in-charge of the two most important departments – central control room laboratory and distribution control system. This is not just a one-off case, but part of a well thought out group-wide strategy to appoint women in key revenue generating roles at the leadership level.”, report said.
“Across the Group, both men and women are recruited on the premise of ‘equal remuneration, equal opportunities”, report said.
In recent years, Vedanta has witnessed the appointment of women to a number of key positions including Non-Executive Director-CEO-Zinc International, Group President-Sustainability, CSR and Community, Group Head of Treasury, Head CSR-HZL and Group Head –Taxation.
“Our recruitment drives focus on identifying women candidates of key roles and offering them career advancement. We have witnessed an upward inclination in percentage of women in total workforce ratio, i.e. from 8.1% in FY 2012-13 to 9.4% in FY 2015-16.” Report also said.
Vedanta is also signatory to the ‘CEO Statement of Support’ for the United Nations’ Women’s Empowerment Principles.
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund has said, “India’s GDP can expand by a whopping 27%, if the number of female workers increases to the same level as that of men.”
The 67 pages report highlighted the wide range of business responsibility and sustainability issues that impact stakeholders and community. They report on how Vedanta is managing these constantly evolving issues and provided a deep insight into future aspects of interventions.
The report is an approach and disclosure towards triple bottom line principles – people, planet and profit over the financial year 2015-16.
Vedanta group companies: Vedanta Limited, Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd. (BALCO), Konkola Copper Mines, Copper Mines of Tasmania, Hindustan Zinc Ltd, Talwani Sabo Power, Cairn India, Zinc International, Sterlite Copper, Sesa Iron Ore.
Vedanta Resources is a London Stock Exchange listed, globally diversified natural resources Company with interests in Zinc, Lead, Silver, Copper, Iron Ore, Aluminium, Power, and Oil & Gas. Our operational footprint spans four continents encompassing India, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Liberia, Ireland, Sri Lanka and Australia.
(About the author: Rusen Kumar is the Editor at India CSR. He can be reached at editor@indiacsr.in or 9981099555)
