SUSTAINABILITY UPDATES : FOR ALL OUR TOMORROWS

Reliable surveys show that almost half of the total of 600 districts in the country face severe water-stress. This will aggravate the challenges of food security by impacting India’s agricultural sector (mostly rain fed) which provides a tenuous sustenance to over 58% of the country’s work force, already battling issues like top soil erosion, groundwater depletion, etc.

The challenge before business and industry, therefore, is to not only sustain profitable enterprises as growth engines for the economy but to contribute meaningfully to social equity.

ITC has responded to these challenges by crafting innovative business models that align social sector investments with its value chains that have led to large scale livelihood creation as well as natural resource augmentation.

Increasing energy usage efficiency: Concerted efforts by all ITC Units to reduce energy consumption through stringent audits and benchmarking have yielded positive results in most of the Units. In 2011-12, the total energy consumed by ITC stands at 21,130 TJ which is 6.3% lower than the energy utilised during the previous year (22,554 TJ in 2010-11*), inspite of significant growth in production volumes in almost all businesses.

The largest integrated Paperboards and Paper Unit at Bhadrachalam which accounted for 71% of the total energy consumed across ITC in 2011-12 has achieved a significant reduction of 12% in energy consumed per tonne of product over the last year, which now stands at 33.21 GJ per tonne of product.

Enhanced use of renewable sources of energy: In line with ITC’s commitment to reduce dependence on fossil fuel based energy, it has progressively made major investments in renewable resources of energy.

In addition to the 43.6 MW wind power projects and a 90 TPH biomass fired Boiler already in operation for over a year, it has installed additional 13.8 MW wind energy units in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. These investments and better utilisation of biomass in the Paperboards and Specialty Papers Business ensured that 38.5% of the Company’s total energy requirements are from renewable sources, which is a remarkable achievement.

Increase in large scale carbon sequestration: Total CO₂ emissions from ITC’s operations decreased to 1,564 Kilotonnes in 2011-12 from 2,046 Kilotonnes in 2010-11*. These emissions, estimated in accordance with the GRI-G3 reporting framework, include 1,157 Kilotonnes of CO₂ emissions arising from use of direct energy (scope 1), 160 Kilotonnes from purchased electricity (scope 2) and 247 Kilotonnes emitted due to transportation of materials and products (scope 3).