Responsible Sourcing of Wood Fibre
 Wood is a major source of fibre for the paper and paperboards industry. Availability of wood remains a critical challenge and is a serious sustainability concern, especially in a country with limited natural resources and acute income inequities.
Approximately 66% of the total fibre requirements of ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division is met by the Organisation’s social and farm forestry projects, another 12.7% comes from recycled fibre, processed at Kovai and Bhadrachalam and the balance is imported pulp used at Bhadrachalam and Tribeni Units. 89% of fibre manufactured in Bhadrachalam is from wood sourced from our social and farm forestry initiatives and the balance (11%) is from other sources. Fibre for operations at the Kovai Unit is totally sourced from recycled waste. 100% of wood and recycled fibre used by ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers Business is of known and legal origin. Internal R&D has produced high yielding, site specific, disease resistant eucalyptus and subabul clones on the back of extensive knowledge of plantation management practices. ITC distributed 54.03 million high quality saplings to farmers and planted 11,652 hectares during the year.
Apart from the obvious benefits of increasing the green cover, plantation on degradable wastelands under the social forestry programme also directly contributes to insitu moisture conservation, ground water recharge and significant reduction in topsoil losses caused by wind and water erosion. In addition, as a result of the leaf litter from multi-species plantations and the promotion of leguminous intercrops, depleted soils are constantly enriched.
Forest Stewardship Council Certifications
Further consolidating ITC’s Triple Bottom Line performance, the four Units of ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division i.e Bhadrachalam, Bollaram, Kovai and Tribeni, recently received the prestigious ‘FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) Chain of Custody’ Certification.
The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests and is recognised as the gold standard in the wood certification for ethical and legal sourcing. The FSC is represented in more than 50 countries around the world, and is the most widely accepted and respected amongst forest product certification schemes.
The FSC endorsement implies that an organisation complies with its principles and criteria in the different areas of its operations. ITC’s Paper and Paperboards Division can now supply FSC certified paper / paperboards from all its four Units with the FSC claim of ‘FSC Mixed’ or ‘FSC Recycled’.
The FSC certification for ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers Units exemplifies the organisation’s continued commitment to sustainable business practices and to the building of an inclusive and secure future for both its stakeholders and the larger society.
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