12 Consecutive years
15 years in a row
for the last 10 years
This Initiative reaches out to over 6.4 million citizens
Over 48% of ITC's Total Energy Requirements met from carbon neutral sources.
22 green buildings
Turnover has grown 11-fold
Profit has grown 39 times
Total Shareholder Returns has grown at a CAGR of 23.6%
Over $50 billion
Over $8 billion
Empowering 4 million farmers
Generating over 110 million person-days of employment
Covering nearly 55,000 rural women
Benefitting over 5,25,000 children
Services provided to over 15,00,000 milch animals
Covering nearly 12,500 acres
Training over 46,000 youth
Over 25,000 low-cost sanitary units constructed
It has been our resolve to build an exemplary Indian enterprise that would create enduring value for our country. An organisation that would adopt the credo of putting 'India First' - keeping Country before Corporation and the Institution before the Individual. Over the years, the patriotic sense of 'India First' has grown into a full-blown aspiration to be a National Champion subserving the country's larger priorities. This is not only manifest in the creation of world-class Indian brands, but also in the Triple Bottom Line goals of the Company to nurture larger societal value. The need to sustain global competitiveness in economic value creation, whilst simultaneously creating larger societal value, has led to innovation in business models that seek to synergise the building of economic, ecological and social capital as a unified strategy.
A new paradigm of growth is today called for - an integrated Triple Bottom Line approach that builds competitiveness whilst at the same time ensuring that the environment is nourished and large-scale sustainable livelihoods are created. I call this new paradigm 'Responsible Competitiveness', which to my mind is a pre-requisite to creating a more sustainable future.
'Enterprises of Tomorrow' can bring in transformational change by making societal value creation a conscious strategic decision and not one that banks on corporate conscience alone. ITC has always believed that businesses possess unique strengths to make a larger contribution to society. If the creative and innovative energies that businesses employ to create world-class products and brands are leveraged to deliver social initiatives that serve a larger national objective, it can have a transformative impact on society.
It is this belief that has spurred ITC to craft innovative strategies that orchestrate a symphony of efforts aimed at enriching the environment, creating sustainable livelihoods, empowering local communities and addressing the challenge of climate change.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Report on Global Risks 2017, the evolving global landscape faces a cluster of environment related interconnected risks such as extreme weather events, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation and water crisis. Climate change acts as a risk multiplier as it tends to worsen the existing environmental and ecosystems' challenges like constrained availability and steady depletion of natural resources and declining biodiversity.
In order to address these challenges, best practices have been embedded into ITC's operations on the basis of which, the Company strives to maximise the efficiencies of natural resource usage across its Businesses. ITC's Businesses have set voluntary targets on key performance indicators such as specific energy consumption, specific greenhouse gas emission, specific water intake, specific waste generation etc. to demonstrate continual improvement on their environmental performance. An organisation-wide integrated sustainability data management system supplemented by standard operating procedures for measurement and recording provides the platform to monitor the data of each business on resource utilisation and environmental impact vis-á-vis production.
In addition, ITC also constantly endeavours to create a positive environmental footprint. Large-scale Social and Farm Forestry, Integrated Watershed Development and Sustainable Agriculture Practices, among others, are a few examples of extensive initiatives in this direction.
ITC's Board approved Policies on Environment, Health and Safety (EHS), Life-cycle Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing, provide the necessary framework to address the direct impacts of the Company's own operations as well as progressively extend the efforts along the supply chain (Please refer to Sustainability Policies available at www.itcportal.com). Businesses are progressing in the phase wise implementation of these policies as per a defined roadmap.
It is the overall responsibility of the Divisional/Strategic Business Unit's (SBU) Chief Executives to ensure implementation of relevant policies and standards on environmental performance through their management team. This also includes institution of various committees and designating specific responsibilities. ITC's Corporate EHS Department is responsible for reviewing and updating Corporate Standards, verifying compliance, providing guidance and support as required. Compliance and progress based upon the roadmap defined by each Business is regularly reviewed by the Sustainability Compliance Review Committee (SCRC) constituted by the Corporate Management Committee (CMC).
The following sections outline ITC's role in addressing each of the challenges posed by material environmental aspects within as well as outside the boundary of its operations and ITC's environmental performance for 2016-17.