ITC :: Sustainability Report 2007

ENVIROMENTAL PERFORMANCE

Environmental footprint of our products

ITC products can be broadly classified into the following categories:

FMCG products:

Cigarettes, Foods, Matches, Greeting Cards and Stationery, etc.

Due to the varied nature and range of FMCG products, we focused on the environmental impacts from sourcing of raw materials till production of finished goods.

Industrial Supplies and Exports:

Paper, Paperboards, Packaging; Leaf Tobacco, Agri-products, etc.

We expect the user industries to take adequate measures to minimise the environmental impact from these supplies.

Services:

Hotels. The environmental impact from these has already been accounted for in the relevant sections of this Report.

ITC’s Fibre Strategy: Raw Material Sustainability

Wood is the major source of fibre for the paper and paperboard industry. Availability of wood remains a major challenge and a serious sustainability concern, especially with the forests density/cover in India being far short of desirable 33%.

Our paperboards mill at Bhadrachalam manufactured over 283,470 tonnes of paperboards in 2006-07, requiring 273,656 tonnes of wood, apart from waste paper and some special pulp.

We have effectively leveraged our need for wood fibre to provide significant opportunities to the economically backward by helping them raise plantations. Our forestry project aims at building grassroots capacity to initiate a virtuous cycle of sustainable development.

Our Research and Development has evolved high yielding, site specific, disease resistant clones and a comprehensive package of plantation management practices. We distributed 119 million high quality saplings to farmers during the year.

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.

Over 91% of our Bhadrachalam mill’s total wood requirement came from plantations under this forestry project. Only 946 tonnes (0.35%) was sourced from private farmlands. The mill also utilised 86,219 tonnes of waste paper. Its bamboo requirement of 15,155 tonnes was sourced from government authorised/approved open market sale.

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

ITC is committed to greening over 100,000 hectares in the coming years under its forestry programme.

This would far exceed the wood fibre requirement for our paperboards business, create livelihood opportunities for a very large number of people in tribal areas and sustain our position as a 'carbon positive' corporation.