ITC’s Fibre Strategy

Availability of wood, the prime source of fibre for the paper and paperboards business, remains a major challenge.

ITC’s paperboards mill at Bhadrachalam manufactured over 299,459 tonnes of paperboards in 2007-08, using 296,528 tonnes of wood, apart from waste paper and some special pulp.

Leveraging its R&D capabilities, ITC has developed high yielding, site specific, disease resistant clones and a comprehensive package of plantation management practices. These have helped the Company’s extensive afforestation programme cover 80,000 hectares with 332 million saplings. During the year, 52 million high quality saplings were distributed to farmers and 15,000 hectares of plantations added to the programme.

Apart from the obvious benefits of increasing the green cover, this effort also directly contributes to in-situ moisture conservation, ground water recharge and significant reduction in topsoil losses due to wind and water erosion. As a result of the leaf litter from multi species plantations and the promotion of leguminous intercrops, depleted soils are constantly enriched.

ITC’s forestry initiatives have not only built grassroots capacities, initiating a virtuous cycle of sustainable development, but also provided significant opportunities to the economically backward by helping them raise plantations.

Over 93% of the Bhadrachalam mill's total wood requirement in 2007-08 came from plantations under ITC’s forestry project. 18,393 tonnes of bamboo was sourced from government authorised/approved open market sale. Only 1165 tonnes of wood (0.39%) was sourced from private farmlands. The mill also utilised 70,226 tonnes of waste paper.

The Bhadrachalam mill, the only unit in ITC with pulping facilities, does not buy wood-based raw materials from unidentified sources. The mill is ISO 9001-2000 certified and ensures traceability of all the wood used in the manufacturing process.

ITC is committed to green 100,000 hectares in the next few years, which would far exceed its wood fibre requirement, creating livelihood opportunities for a very large number of people in tribal areas and further enlarge ITC’s ‘Carbon Positive’ footprint.

ITC Water Positive 6th Year In A Row

Water remains a very serious sustainability and environmental concern globally.

India faces a turbulent water future. With over 16% of the global population having access to less than 3% land mass and less than 4% fresh water resources in the world, water scarcity in India is likely to worsen over the years.

ITC units drew 27.5 million kilolitres of fresh water in 2007-08 (25.8 MKL in 2006-07). The higher water consumption in 2007-08 is on account of growth in production, significant project activities and inclusion of additional businesses within the reporting boundary.