Key Impacts, Risks And Opportunities:
Sustainability Challenges

Supply Chain Management

The engagement with our supply chain has expanded given the growth of our new consumer goods businesses and it will be important to integrate the Triple Bottom Line approach amongst the supply chain to ensure long-term competitiveness by adopting a balanced approach towards creation of livelihoods and economic viability of these Units.

Our supply chain comprises a large number of small-scale partners. Many of them operate under limiting circumstances in terms of their ability to invest in efficient technologies and their necessity to rely on labour intensive practices. It will be important to integrate the Triple Bottom Line approach amongst the supply chain for long-term competitiveness by adopting a balanced approach towards creation of livelihoods and economic viability of the small scale units.

ITC’s Initiatives

The Company’s engagement with the supply chain is being extended in a structured and phased manner.

ITC encourages its supply chain to comply with certifications, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001, to strengthen their quality, environmental and occupational health & safety systems.

ITC is developing its approach to address these aspects and we intend to cover our entire value chain with our sustainability initiatives in the next few years.

Addressing Issues Related to Employee Safety

Given India’s favourable demographic dividend, it is evident that a large pool of India’s youth is joining the workforce every year. It is critically important for an organisation to ensure the total safety of this valuable resource. While we are progressing steadily towards our target of zero accidents within our premises, we cognise that accidents outside the workplace are on the rise in India, given issues such as the steady proliferation of 2 wheelers on the roads, which are rendered unsafe due to poor conditions and inadequate infrastructure.

ITC’s Initiatives

ITC has made significant investments over the years to ensure that all its business units provide a safe, hygienic and humane environment to its employees. To further strengthen efforts in this area, Safety Culture programmes are being institutionalised and behavioural architecture inputs are being used to rework and recalibrate EHS communication and training methodologies. Training on EHS is provided to all employees (including service providers’ employees) and covers basic induction, job specific and refresher training.

It has been observed over the years that the majority of road accidents have involved two wheelers and employees in the age group of 26-30 years. Accordingly a user interactive 2-wheeler road safety programme was developed and rolled out last year. Businesses were advised to ensure that all 2 wheeler using employees are trained and that there is a constant reinforcement of the message for exercising extreme care, while on the road. These efforts have resulted in a sharp reduction in road accidents. It will be ensured that coverage is completed across businesses and a similar programme on 4 wheeler safety is planned to be rolled out in 2013-14.