FMCG - Others | FMCG ‐ Cigarettes | Hotels 
Agri Business | Paperboards, Paper & Packaging

PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH, 2023

After two years of pandemic-led disruptions, FY 2022-23 marked a return to normalcy in operations. However, geopolitical tensions, continued supply chain dislocations and climate crisis resulted in unprecedented inflation and volatility in global commodity and energy prices. Central banks across the world responded swiftly with sharp increase in interest rates within a relatively short time frame. The Indian economy remained a bright spot in FY 2022-23 amidst the global slowdown. Real GDP growth for the year is estimated at 7.0% with the pace of growth decelerating during the second half of the year to around 4.8%. With steep inflation eating into household budgets, consumption demand remained subdued particularly in rural markets and for discretionary categories in urban markets.

Against the backdrop of a challenging operating environment as aforestated, the Company's consumer centricity, agility in seizing market opportunities, focus on execution excellence and proactive strategic interventions enabled it to post strong performance across all operating segments.

Overall for FY 2022-23, Gross Revenue at Rs. 69480.89 crores increased by 17.6%, while EBITDA increased by 26.5% to Rs. 23944.47 crores. Profit Before Tax and Exceptional items at Rs. 24677.54 crores grew by 24.4% and Profit After Tax at Rs. 18753.31 crores grew by 24.5% over previous year. Total Comprehensive Income for the year stood at Rs. 18782.57 crores (previous year Rs. 15631.68 crores). Earnings Per Share for the year stood at Rs. 15.15 (previous year Rs. 12.22).

CORPORATE ACTION

The operating environment in the last three financial years has been extremely challenging due to disruptions caused by the pandemic, unprecedented inflationary pressures and sluggish demand conditions, amongst others.

It is heartening to note that, powered by the ITC Next Strategy of building a Future Ready, Consumer Centric, Climate Positive and Inclusive organisation anchored on the paradigm of 'Responsible Competitiveness', the Company has emerged stronger and enhanced its competitiveness across operating segments through this period, and sustained its position as a global exemplar in Sustainability.

The Board of Directors of the Company have recommended to the shareholders for their approval, a Special Dividend of Rs. 2.75 per share in addition to the Final Dividend of Rs. 6.75 per share for the financial year ended 31st March, 2023. Together with the Interim Dividend of Rs. 6.00 per share paid on 3rd March, 2023, the total Dividend for the financial year ended 31st March, 2023 amounts to Rs. 15.50 per share (previous year Rs. 11.50 per share). Total cash outflow on account of Dividend (including interim Dividend of Rs. 7448.41 crores paid in March 2023) will be Rs. 19255.02 crores.

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FMCG - OTHERS

The FMCG-Others Segment registered strong growth amidst subdued demand conditions. Robust growth was witnessed across all major categories of Branded Packaged Foods viz. Staples, Biscuits, Snacks, Noodles, Beverages. While 'Fiama' and 'Vivel' range of Personal Wash products and Engage Fragrances grew well, the Hygiene portfolio witnessed moderation in demand, even as it remained well ahead of pre-pandemic levels. In the Education & Stationery Products business, notebook sales registered sharp growth with resumption of educational institutions. The Incense Sticks (Agarbattis) business witnessed robust recovery during the year after two years of pandemic induced disruptions.

Segment Revenue for the year grew by 19.6% with Segment EBITDA growing at a faster pace of 34.9% to Rs. 1953.97 crores. Segment EBITDA margins expanded by 115 bps amidst severe inflationary pressures. The Businesses continued to drive improvement in profitability through multi-pronged interventions viz. premiumisation, supply chain agility, judicious pricing actions, digital initiatives, strategic cost management and fiscal incentives (including PLI).

The Businesses continue to leverage the power of digital to drive superior consumer insights & innovation, deepen consumer engagement and enhance brand loyalty. 'Sixth Sense', the Marketing Command Centre and Consumer Data Hub - an AI-powered hyper-personalised platform backed by a robust partner ecosystem for content and data, is being increasingly utilised to gain insights on market trends and consumer behaviour, as well as synthesise the same to craft contextual and hyper-personalised brand communication and product development.

Over 90 new products anchored on the vectors of Health & Nutrition, Hygiene, Protection & Care, Convenience & On-the-Go, Indulgence etc., were launched across target markets during the year, leveraging the R&D platforms of the Company's Life Sciences and Technology Centre (ITC LSTC) and agile product development teams across Businesses.

In line with the Company's multi-channel Go-to-Market strategy, market coverage was stepped up to appx. 2.1x of pre-pandemic levels. In rural markets, direct reach enhancement was supported through a hub and spoke distribution model with the continued expansion of rural stockists network to 1.2x over previous year and collaborations with rural-focused eB2B players. Further, sales through the e-Commerce channel stood at 4.7x over FY 2019-20 levels, taking the channel salience to over 10%.

'ITC e-Store', the Company's exclusive Direct to Consumer (D2C) platform, is now operational in 10,000+ pin-codes and continues to receive excellent consumer response. Category specific D2C platforms viz. Classmateshop.com, Dermafique.com and Aashirvaad.com/Meri-Chakki are being scaled up to foster consumer insights, as well as commerce.

The Company's digitally powered eB2B platform - UNNATI was rapidly scaled up during the year covering nearly 5.4 lakh outlets facilitating sharp and direct engagement with retailers, superior analytics and deeper brand engagement.

During the year, the Company implemented a digitally-powered integrated planning and supply chain tool, which leverages Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies for Inventory optimisation and productivity enhancement. This intervention is expected to enhance supply chain agility and efficiency, while also further improving market servicing.

The FMCG Businesses continue to expand their export footprint leveraging the equity of their world-class brands - with a reach now spanning over 60 countries. The PLI scheme has provided further fillip to the Company's exports across Biscuits & Cakes, Snacks, Dairy and Ready-to-Eat categories.

Branded Packaged Foods Businesses

The Branded Packaged Foods Businesses remain focused on addressing emerging consumer needs with innovations anchored on the vectors of health, nutrition, wellness, immunity, naturals, indulgence and convenience, leveraging superior consumer insights, capabilities of ITC LSTC and the cuisine expertise resident in the Company's Hotels Business.

With the overarching vision to 'Help India Eat Better', the Company's Nutrition strategy seeks to create a sustainable ecosystem anchored on a portfolio of healthier, affordable & accessible 'Good For You/Free From' value added products, supported by responsible policies in line with national priorities on nutrition.

The Company has spearheaded 'ITC Mission Millets', leveraging its enterprise strengths in agriculture, food and hospitality to implement multi-dimensional interventions in this area. The holistic programme follows a strategic 3-fold approach - developing a 'good-for-you' product portfolio, implementing sustainable farming systems, and enhancing consumer awareness through an Educate, Empower and Encourage approach. The Company has implemented a focused strategy in crafting a millet products portfolio under its world-class Indian brands for every occasion, age and formats, and has launched a range of millet-based products. In the Staples Business, 'Ragi Flour', 'Gluten Free Flour', 'Multi-Millet Mix' were launched under the 'Aashirvaad Nature's Super Foods' brand. The Biscuits Business augmented its portfolio with the launch of 'Sunfeast Farmlite Super Millets', with two variants - Chocochip Millet and Multi Millet cookies. The Company is further developing a comprehensive millets-based portfolio under popular brand names and in familiar formats to enable easier adoption.

Key highlights of the Branded Packaged Foods Businesses are given below:

- In the Staples Business, 'Aashirvaad' witnessed robust growth on an elevated base and fortified its market standing across geographies. The value-added portfolio, consisting of Multigrain, Select and Sugar Release Control Atta posted healthy growth driven by higher salience in Modern Trade and e-Commerce channels. The range was further augmented with the launch of 'Aashirvaad Ragi Vermicelli', 'Aashirvaad Bansi Rava', 'Aashirvaad Samba Broken Wheat', 'Aashirvaad Double Roasted Suji Rava' and 'Aashirvaad Besan'. The Business also launched Frozen Indian Flat Breads (Paratha, Naan and Chapati), hitherto offered only in international markets, in select domestic markets as well.

Aashirvaad Salt strengthened leadership in key focus geographies and posted healthy growth during the year.

In the Spices category, the 'Sunrise' brand strengthened its market standing in the core market of West Bengal and extended gains in East/North East markets to fortify its position as one of the leading Spices brands of the region. Aashirvaad Spices continues to enhance its presence in emerging channels and core markets to enable full portfolio play along with expansion of the blended portfolio.

- 'Sunfeast' Biscuits witnessed strong growth during the year, driven by robust performance of the core portfolio, scale up of innovations and the launch of several exciting and differentiated new variants. The Business continues to strengthen its core portfolio with investments behind powerful brand ideas, superior products and calibrated pricing actions. The portfolio was augmented with the launch of 'Sunfeast Supermilk' and 'Sunfeast Thin Arrowroot' in select markets.

- The Snacks Business sustained its robust growth trajectory driven by the core variants as well as new launches. 'Bingo!' continues to be the market leader in the Bridges segment across the country, and in the potato chips segment in South India. A slew of new launches during the year, viz., 'Bingo! Hashtags' and 'Bingo! Street Bites', and refreshed packs of 'Bingo! Tedhe Medhe' namkeen portfolio, elicited excellent consumer response.

- In the Instant Noodles category, 'YiPPee!' witnessed strong growth during the year, aided by judicious pricing interventions and focused brand investments. The product portfolio was augmented with the launch of 'Quik Mealz', in a differentiated 'noodles in a bowl' format, in target markets.

- In the Dairy & Beverages Business, the 'Aashirvaad Svasti' fresh dairy portfolio comprising pouch milk, curd, lassi and paneer continued to gain strong consumer traction on the back of best-in-class quality standards, differentiated products and superior taste profile. These products are currently available in Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand markets. The value-added portfolio is constantly being enriched with launch of differentiated offerings such as 'Litchi' flavoured Lassi, select Indian desserts under 'Aashirvaad Mithaas', 'Paneer Slice' and organic range of 'Aashirvaad Svasti Ghee' in select markets.

- 'B Natural' juices witnessed a resurgence during the year with return to normalcy in market conditions. The Business continued to leverage the `Fruit and Fibre' proposition of 'B Natural' to deepen consumer connect and increase brand affinity. The Dairy Beverages portfolio leveraged the strong equity of 'Sunfeast' and 'Dark Fantasy' to grow rapidly in target markets and in emerging channels.

- In the Frozen Snacks category, the range of 'ITC Master Chef' continued to deliver industry leading growth, powered by a range of innovative and differentiated offerings. The portfolio offers a delectable range of Indian & Western snacks, dips & spreads, Frozen Prawns and Frozen Vegetables.

New launches across categories continue to garner excellent consumer response and are being scaled up in the target markets.

The Company continues to leverage the benefits of the state-of-the-art Ancillary Manufacturing and Logistics Facilities (AMLF) at Pudukkottai and Kapurthala. These facilities are co-located with the respective ICMLs and provide several structural advantages including inventory optimisation, delayering operations and lowering cost of market servicing. The Company recently commissioned a new ICML at Khordha, Odisha. With this, 11 ICMLs are operational in locations proximal to large demand centres.

The Company has made significant investments in food processing and remains focused on establishing itself as the leading player in the branded packaged foods industry. The Government's Production Linked Incentives (PLI) Scheme for the food processing industry will incentivise fresh investments, enable building Indian brands for the global market, promote exports and boost farmer incomes. The Company has been included under the PLI Scheme towards sales-based incentives in the Ready to Eat, Fruits & Vegetables and Marine categories respectively as well as for incentives towards expenditure incurred for branding and marketing in export markets. The Company has made investments under the scheme towards scaling up manufacturing capacities across categories and is confident of achieving performance targets specified therein.

The Business implemented several strategic cost management initiatives in areas such as supply chain optimisation, smart procurement and productivity improvement through automation, leveraging new-age technologies such as Industry 4.0 and smart utilities. These interventions helped mitigate the unprecedented cost inflation witnessed during the year and also offset start-up costs of new facilities and strategic investments in brand building for gestating categories.

Personal Care Products

In the Personal Care Products Business, portfolio premiumisation, launch of innovative and differentiated range of products and agility in mitigating the impact of commodity inflation enabled the Business to strengthen the core and grow emerging categories during the year, in spite of a challenging operating environment.

In the Personal Wash segment, 'Fiama' registered strong growth in line with increased traction towards premium offerings, fuelled by investments in brand building, wider distribution and growth across channels. A new range of 'Happy Naturals' Perfume mists and Shower Gels were launched during the year to meet the growing demand for 'Naturals'. The portfolio was further augmented with launch of 'Deep Clean Charcoal and Grapefruit' range of gel bathing bars and shower gel, exclusively for men. The 'Vivel' range of soaps continued to build momentum and posted healthy growth during the year.

The Fragrance category witnessed strong growth across segments. The premium range of 'Engage L'amante' and 'Engage EDP' perfumes continued to garner encouraging response. The Business launched a new premium EDP range with best-in-class fragrances for occasion-based use.

The Company is setting up a state-of-the-art Personal Care and Home Care products manufacturing unit in Uluberia, West Bengal, in line with its strategy of building in-house manufacturing capabilities for products with unique formulations, enhancing supply chain agility and responsiveness, and reducing distance to market.

Education and Stationery Products

The Education and Stationery Products industry recorded a strong recovery with progressive resumption of physical classes at educational institutions and demand recovering to pre-pandemic levels. The Business reinforced its market leadership position in the industry, delivering a competitively superior performance driven by portfolio premiumisation, judicious pricing actions and continued focus on cost and working capital management.

The 'Classmate' Notebooks portfolio was augmented with the launch of craft books and 40+ notebook variants under the 'Interaktiv' range. During the year, the Business also strengthened its reach amongst the youth through 'Classmate Pulse', with launch of notebooks integrating QR based AR (Augmented Reality) technology. The 'Paperkraft' portfolio was further scaled up through launch of 'Paperkraft Vintage Kraft' cover series for leisure writing and 'Paperkraft Debossed PU' series with motivational quotes. The Writing Instruments portfolio was bolstered with the launch of 'Classmate Hook' pens, a unique innovation that enhances the brand's visibility and appeal.

The Business sustained its leadership position on e-Commerce platforms through consistent availability of a wide assortment of products, backed by focused interventions to enhance consumer traction.

The Business continues to ramp up capacity utilisation of its dedicated notebook manufacturing facility. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, the facility enables the Business to develop highly differentiated notebook formats, drive cost reduction and address opportunities in overseas markets.

Incense Sticks (Agarbattis) and Safety Matches

The Agarbatti industry witnessed robust recovery with the opening of places of worship and markets across the country.

The Company's flagship brand 'Mangaldeep' effectively leveraged market opportunities and continued to enhance its standing in the Incense Sticks category. New launches during the year include 'Mangaldeep 3 in 1' Agarbatti, 'Dhuno Cups' and bamboo-less 'Dhoop Sticks'. Proactive steps were also taken towards driving portfolio premiumisation and cost optimisation. Unprecedented inflationary headwinds in key ingredients were mitigated by leveraging economies of scale, superior portfolio mix and driving sourcing efficiencies.

In the Safety Matches industry, the Business strengthened its market leadership position by leveraging the brand 'Homelites' - built on differentiated positioning of stronger, longer and karborised sticks.

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FMCG - CIGARETTES

After two years of severe disruptions due to the pandemic, the legal cigarette industry recovered during the year with normalisation in the operating environment.

The Business continues to counter illicit trade and reinforce market standing by fortifying the product portfolio through innovation, democratising premiumisation across segments and enhancing product availability backed by superior on-ground execution. Several differentiated variants such as 'Classic Connect', 'Gold Flake Indie Mint', 'Gold Flake Kings Mixpod', 'Classic Alphatec', 'Gold Flake Smart Mintz', 'Wills Fab' and 'Lucky Strike' were introduced. The Business also expanded its presence in focus markets with the launch of differentiated offerings across segments and strengthened its presence in Duty-Free outlets at International as well as Domestic airports.

Manufacturing facilities continue to be modernised by inducting contemporary technologies towards securing higher levels of productivity, product excellence and driving innovation. New benchmarks continue to be set in areas of quality, sustainability, supply chain responsiveness and productivity. Cutting-edge technologies such as Industry 4.0 and Data Sciences are being leveraged to build a smart manufacturing environment of connected systems.

Punitive taxes on the legal cigarette industry over the years have created extremely attractive tax arbitrage opportunities for unscrupulous players resulting in rapid growth in illicit cigarette trade, making India the 4th largest illicit cigarette market globally, accounting for about one-fourth of the domestic industry, according to Euromonitor estimates. It is pertinent to note that strong deterrent actions by enforcement agencies have led to significant rise in seizure of illicit cigarettes in recent years.

The extremely stringent regulations along with the discriminatory and steep taxation on cigarettes have had numerous negative, albeit unintended repercussions. These include revenue loss to the Exchequer, widespread availability of tobacco products of dubious quality and hygiene, large component of tobacco consumption remaining outside the tax net and persistent negative impact on the livelihood of tobacco farmers.

The recent stability in taxes on cigarettes has enabled the legal cigarette industry to partially claw back volumes lost to illicit trade, thereby engendering domestic demand for Indian tobaccos, while also mitigating loss of tax revenue to the Exchequer due to illicit trade.

The Company continues to engage with policy makers for a framework of pragmatic, equitable, non-discriminatory, evidence-based regulations and taxation policies that balance the economic imperatives of the country and tobacco control objectives, to maximise the potential of cigarettes within the overall tobacco basket, cognising for the unique tobacco consumption pattern in India.

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HOTELS

The Hotels Segment witnessed a stellar recovery during the year, clocking robust growth in Revenue and Profits buoyed by weddings, leisure and MICE segments along with progressive pick-up in business travel. Segment Revenue doubled over FY22 and stood at 1.4x of pre-pandemic levels. Segment EBITDA margins stood at 32.2% representing an expansion of 930 bps over FY20.

ITC Narmada - a luxury 291-key hotel in Ahmedabad was launched during the year and has elicited excellent guest response.

The ITC Hotels website with enhanced functionalities and the recently revamped full stack ITC Hotels App for Food Delivery, Room & Table Reservations, Loyalty Benefits, Exclusive Offers and more, continue to receive excellent response and are being leveraged effectively to enhance guest engagement and enable revenue growth.

The Company's 'asset-right' strategy envisages a substantial part of incremental room additions, going forward, to accrue through management contracts. The Business had launched two new brands last year - 'Mementos' in the Luxury Lifestyle segment and 'Storii' in the Premium segment.

During the year, 11 new properties were added under management contracts to the Group portfolio, including Mementos Ekaaya Udaipur, Storii Shanti Morada at Goa, Storii Amoha Retreat at Dharamshala, Welcomhotel Jim Corbett & Welcomhotel Ahmedabad.

The Company remains a trailblazer in green hoteliering and sustainability globally. With the largest footprint of 22 USGBC LEED Platinum certified properties, the Group reaffirmed its commitment to the ethos of 'Responsible Luxury'.

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AGRI BUSINESS

Despite restrictions imposed on wheat & rice exports during the year, the Agri Business Segment delivered a resilient performance with Segment Revenue and Results growing by 12.2% and 28.8% respectively. Margin expansion was driven by leaf tobacco exports and value-added agri products.

Leaf Tobacco

The Business continued to leverage its crop development expertise, superior product quality, world-class processing facilities and sustainability credentials to strengthen its position as a reliable supply chain partner. Deep farmer engagement, strong customer relationships, agility and supply chain efficiency enabled the Business to deliver enhanced value to existing customers and consolidate its pre-eminent position as the largest Indian exporter of unmanufactured tobacco.

The Business continues to set benchmarks in leaf threshing operations through focused initiatives and innovative technological & digital solutions. Investments continue to be made in the Company's Green Leaf Threshing plants (GLT) at Anaparti, Chirala and Mysuru towards delivering world-class quality and upgrading processing technology. The energy needs of all three GLTs are substantially met from renewable sources in line with the Company's philosophy of adopting a low-carbon growth path.

The state-of-the-art facility to manufacture and export Nicotine & Nicotine derivative products being set up by the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, ITC IndiVision Limited, is expected to be commissioned shortly. The facility is being geared to manufacture purest nicotine derivatives conforming to US and EU pharmacopoeia standards.

Strategic cost management across the value chain continues to be a key focus area for the Business. The AI/ML powered smart buying platform continues to be scaled up to facilitate efficient leaf tobacco buying across auction platforms. Several initiatives implemented in recent years have led to improved operating efficiencies across manufacturing and supply chains.

Other Agri Commodities

The operating environment remained challenging during the year due to various policy interventions of the Government of India to ensure food security and control inflation arising out of geopolitical conflicts and erratic weather pattern.

Notwithstanding the challenging operating environment, the Business leveraged market opportunities to deliver robust performance during the year. This was achieved on the back of the Company's strong farm linkages and sourcing networks, multi modal logistics capability, agile supply chain operations, focused scale up of Value-Added Agri Products (VAAP) portfolio and deep customer relationships.

The strategic focus of the Business in recent years has been to accelerate growth by rapidly developing and scaling up VAAP straddling multiple value chains comprising Spices, Coffee, Frozen Marine Products and Processed Fruits amongst others. The portfolio continues to be rapidly scaled up, leveraging the Company's deep rural linkages and extensive sourcing expertise towards strengthening and customising supply chains for traceable, attribute based and identity-preserved sourcing of agri-commodities.

In line with its strategy of expanding value-added portfolio, the Company has commissioned a world-class, state-of-the-art Spices processing facility in Andhra Pradesh. This facility, compliant with Global Food Safety standards, will enable the Company in expanding its customer reach in high-margin food-safe export markets, besides promoting inclusive spices value chains benefiting thousands of Indian farmers. During the year, with robust growth in exports of value-added spices to 'food-safe' markets, viz. USA, EU and Japan, the Business consolidated its position as a preferred supplier for discerning customers in these markets besides strengthening its domestic business.

Adoption of analytics-led smart supply chain management and procurement tools is being stepped up for securing cost competitive advantage for the Business.

The Business continues to leverage its strong farm linkages and wide sourcing network across geographies towards meeting the growing requirements of Aashirvaad atta. During the year, the Business further scaled up its strategic sourcing and supply chain interventions including focused crop development towards securing the right varieties for Aashirvaad atta to provide consumers best-in-class product quality and experience, use of multi-modal transportation, blend/cost optimisation through geographical and varietal arbitrage and enabling supply of attribute based/identity preserved crop. The Business also ramped up direct buying at various atta factories. Milk procurement network in Bihar and West Bengal was strengthened towards meeting the growing requirements of the Company's Fresh Dairy portfolio while sourcing of Spices was scaled up for the Sunrise and Aashirvaad brands.

Towards enhancing the competitiveness of domestic agri-value chains, strengthening market linkages and further augmenting value creation opportunities, the Company has successfully scaled up ITCMAARS (Metamarket for Advanced Agriculture and Rural Services) - a crop-agnostic 'phygital' full stack AgriTech platform across nine states, with over 1150 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) encompassing more than 5,00,000 farmers added to the Company's network within a short period since launch. This initiative, powered by cutting-edge digital technologies, is creating a robust eco system to deliver seamless hyperlocal and personalised solutions to the farming community and ensure financial inclusion, whilst creating new and scalable revenue streams, strengthening sourcing efficiencies and powering the Company's world-class Indian brands.

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PAPERBOARDS, PAPER & PACKAGING

The Paperboards, Paper & Packaging Segment demonstrated strong performance during the year on the back of robust growth across end-user segments; Segment Revenue and Segment Results grew by 18.8% and 34.9% respectively.

The Paperboards and Specialty Papers Business delivered robust performance amidst heightened inflationary pressures. The Business continued to leverage its key sources of competitive advantage which comprise secure access to high-quality and sustainable fibre base at competitive costs, in-house chemical and mechanical pulp manufacturing capacity (incl. the first-in-India BCTMP mill), world-class product quality, innovation anchored on deep consumer insights and engagement with end-user industries, wide range of products, best-in-class service levels and green credentials. These capabilities have been enhanced by digital interventions which have enabled delivering superior productivity and operational efficiencies.

The Business fortified its clear leadership in the Value Added Paperboard (VAP) segment through innovation focused on developing customised solutions for end-use industries and maintaining best-in-class customer service levels.

The Packaging and Printing Business, a one-stop packaging solutions provider to several segments, remained resilient and registered robust growth in domestic and exports businesses. Amidst heightened competitive intensity and sluggish economic conditions, the Business has been aggressively pursuing new business development opportunities across segments which resulted in several additions to key accounts during the year. To cater to its growing customer base across the country and to further improve customer service levels, the Business has commissioned a greenfield manufacturing plant in Nadiad, Gujarat with state-of-the-art equipment for the Cartons platform. The capacity utilisation at the facility is being progressively scaled up.

The Company is actively engaged in developing and promoting suitable paper and paperboard substrates to replace single-use plastics. The sustainable products portfolio comprises 'FiloBev', 'FiloServe', 'FiloPack', 'OmegaBev' and 'OmegaBev Vio', which are alternatives to plastic coated containers, cups and other deep freeze applications. Innovative packaging solutions continue to be crafted, leveraging deep understanding of end-user needs and capabilities of the Company's Life Sciences and Technology Centre. Along with a steady pipeline of pioneering solutions such as 'Bioseal' (compostable packaging solution), 'Oxyblock' (recyclable coating solution to enhance barrier properties in packaging) and 'Germ free coating' (solution for microbial free packaging surface addressing the consumer consciousness towards hygiene and safety), the Business has also pioneered several innovative solutions towards "Reducing, Reusing and Recycling" of plastic substrates which are under various stages of commercialisation. Going forward, the Business will continue to invest resources to develop sustainable packaging solutions. During the year, the Company set up a new wholly owned subsidiary, ITC Fibre Innovations Limited, to foray into the fast-growing premium Moulded Fibre Products (MFP) space with applications across industries including food serving and delivery, pharmaceutical, beauty and electronics; construction of a state-of-the-art MFP manufacturing facility in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, is underway.

CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In line with its superordinate goal of serving larger national priorities and creating value for all stakeholders, the Company has evolved a new paradigm of 'Responsible Competitiveness' that focuses on extreme competitiveness but in a manner that replenishes the environment and supports sustainable livelihoods.

The Company is a global exemplar in sustainability, and continues to be a carbon, water and solid waste re-cycling positive organisation. The Company sustained its 'AA' rating by MSCI-ESG for the fifth successive year - the highest amongst global tobacco companies. It is also a part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index for the third year in a row – a reflection of being a sustainability leader in the industry. The Company was rated at the 'Leadership Level' score of 'A-' for both Climate Change and Water Security (Asia and Global average at 'C' for climate change and 'B' for water security) by CDP, a reputed independent global platform for disclosures on environmental impacts.

As a testament to ITC Hotels Responsible Luxury ethos and the Company's Triple Bottom Line philosophy, all major hotel properties of the Company are LEED Platinum certified. ITC Grand Chola, the 600-key super-premium luxury hotel complex in Chennai, is amongst the world's largest LEED Platinum certified green hotels. 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 more ITC Hotels have been certified as LEED Zero Carbon. ITC Mughal became the first hotel globally to be awarded the LEED Zero Water Certification by the US Green Building Council, followed by ITC Sonar, which is also the second hotel to be awarded the certification globally. Further, the Company's 'Sankhya' data centre in Bengaluru became the first data centre in the world to be awarded the LEED Zero Carbon certification.

In the area of water stewardship, the Company has stepped up its initiatives in both demand and supply side management. On the demand side, in addition to the Kovai paper mill, which became the second site in the world to have received the Platinum-level certification under the 'Alliance for Water Stewardship Standards (AWS)', this year, the Malur unit became the first food processing facility in Asia to be awarded this recognition, which is the gold standard for water stewardship in the world.

The Company 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, which is more than the plastic packaging utilised by the Company, across 36 States/Union Territories.

The Company has installed and commissioned 178 MW of renewable energy capacity in the form of solar and wind power across the country. Additionally, the Company's Paperboards & Specialty Papers Business commissioned a state-of-the-art and future-ready High Pressure Recovery Boiler which will contribute towards reducing carbon footprint.

Please refer link below for performance highlights of the quarter:
https://www.itcportal.com/investor/pdf/ITC-Quarterly-Result-Presentation-Q4-FY2023.pdf

The Board of Directors, at its meeting on 18th May 2023, approved the financial results for the year ended 31st March 2023, which are enclosed.

Click here for the Standalone Financial Results

Click here for the Consolidated Financial Results