CHAMPION OF ENVIRONMENT- ITC (INDIA)

SUSTAINABILITY FOCUSED GROWTH...


ITC is a diversified Indian company with presence in FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business and Information Technology. ITC  is one of the largest & most professionally run organizations in India. Established over 100 years back, ITC Limited, with a turnover close to US$ 7 Billion annually, net income close to US$ 3 billion and a market capitalisation of over US $ 40 Billion, is undoubtedly one of the most successful brick and mortar companies grown out of Indian soil.

ITC's efforts in Sustainable Development and Environmental preservation have been pioneering and exemplary.
For championing the issues of environmental preservation through well executed and widely participated afforestation programs, ITC was conferred the World Business and Development Award 2012 at the historic Rio+20 United Nations Summit.

By spearheading a low carbon growth strategy, ITC has achieved a number of milestones in the environmental and social dimensions.

i) ITC has been "carbon positive" for 7 consecutive years, sequestering twice its emissions.

ii)  It has been "water positive" for 10 years, having created freshwater potential that is more than twice its consumption. 

iii) ITC has been "solid waste recycling positive" for 5 years continuously.

iv) More than 38% of ITC's vast energy requirements are met from renewable sources. More than a dozen ITC facilities including premium luxury hotels and factories in several locations as well as the ITC Infotech Park and the ITC R & D Centre in Bengaluru run more or less completely with renewable energy . Such a large footprint of renewable energy not only reduces demand for fossil fuels but also contributes to cost efficiency in the long-term.

v) ITC Green Centre in Gurgaon has recently been re-certified as the world's highest rated Platinum certified green building by the US Green Building Council.

vi) Several of ITC's factories have also received the Platinum Green Factory Building Rating.

vii) ITC Hotels is the greenest hotel chain in the world with all the premium luxury hotels of the company being Platinum LEED certified.

ITC also undertakes several social development focused initiatives to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities to over 5 million rural & tribal people in India.

Some of the popular programmes ITC runs are:

a) Farmer empowerment programme: ITC e-Choupal benefiting over 4million farmers from over 40000 villages

b) Social farming and Forestry Programmes : ITC has undertaken significant wasteland development and greening of over 125,000 hectares and uses renewable plantations from these areas enabling ITC to offer the greenest products in the country such as Classmate notebooks and Paperkraft business and copier paper.

c) Wealth out of Waste (WoW) programme : ITC's WoW initiative is supported by 3 million citizens, 500,000 school children, 350 corporates and over 1,000 commercial establishments. This in turn helps augment green cover, conserves energy and scarce natural resources, makes surroundings clean and healthy and creates livelihood opportunities.

With a number of well-crafted programs, ITC strategically follows a sustainable development model that has paid rich dividends to it as an organization as well.

From a company suffering from a poor image of being a tobacco product maker once upon a time, ITC has transformed itself into a highly valuable and most respected enterprise, commanding a high price-equity ration for its stock in the Indian stock exchanges. This is one of the main reasons behind its soaring market valuation in excess of 40 Billion US Dollars, giving it a great financial strength to thrive in the extremely competitive environment of the 21st century.

ITC can be taken as a benchmark for the organizations aiming to achieve a fine balance of their Triple Bottom Line objectives, thus pursuing the Sustainable Development model of excellence.

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