Building a sustainable future

UltraTech Cement is committed to building a low-carbon future and has de-vised a clear roadmap for accelerating the adoption of low-carbon technologies and processes across its value chain.

Internal carbon pricing

Green focused companies around the world are using internal carbon pricing as a risk mitigation strategy to manage climate-related business risks and pre-pare for a transition to a low-carbon economy. Following this path, UltraTech has set up an internal carbon price – a cost to support reduction of carbon emissions.

Internal carbon price is a monetary value assigned to each tonne of CO2 emis-sions. While weighing business decisions, its impact on the environment is captured in terms of monetary value through this procedure. It directly inte-grates climate change mitigation within business decisions. UltraTech has commenced valuation of carbon emissions with the introduction of shadow price of US$ 10 /tonne CO2.

Climate related disclosures

The company adopted the Task Force for Climate Related Disclosure (TCFD) guidelines to enhance its disclosures on climate performance. It has identified climate change transitional risks and physical risks, and impacts on UltraTech’s operations, as per TCFD guidelines.

The company has also mapped its operations using GeoSust, a strategic tool which helps understand potential scenarios, along with Aqueduct – a tool to map water risks such as floods, droughts, and stress, using open-source, peer reviewed data.

Adopting alternatives

UltraTech has accelerated the adoption of key levers like low clinker products, use of alternative raw materials and fuels, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and waste heat recovery system as part of its decarbonisation strategy.

The company continues to scale up its contribution to the circular economy by utilising 20.29 million tonnes of Alternative Raw Material (ARM) as part of its production operations. The company consumes ARM such as flyash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, chemical gypsum, red mud, among others, which go a long way in helping to conserve natural raw materials.

Utilising waste

The use of red mud is an example of circular economy at work. Red mud is a waste by-product of aluminium manufacturing and works as a valuable input in the cement manufacturing process as it reduces the use of natural resources.

The company utilises around 1.2 million metric tonnes of red mud annually from Hindalco Industries Ltd, which has helped conserve more than one mil-lion tonne of mined natural resources. The use of red mud for cement produc-tion has also benefitted Hindalco in managing its manufacturing waste.

Concrete recycling

UltraTech became the first commercial ready mix concrete manufacturer in In-dia to adopt concrete recycling technology and create the first ‘zero discharge’ concrete plant. More than 50% of raw material from unused concrete is recycled for making fresh concrete and used back in the process.

The company’s efforts to diversify its portfolio to include products with lower GHG impact have yielded promising results. The company launched low carbon products such as Portland Pozzolona cement, super and composite cement which have a lower clinker factor compared to ordinary Portland cement. The cement major’s product portfolio currently includes more than 70 sustainable products with GreenPro certification.

Focus on renewables

UltraTech has stepped up efforts to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by substituting it with wastes from other industries and investments in renewable energy. The cumulative efforts have resulted in around 3.1% of the company’s fuel requirements being met through the use of alternative fuels.

UltraTech is India’s first concrete manufacturer to meet the requirements of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and other green building rat-ing systems as recognised by the Indian Green Building Council.

As India’s largest cement and concrete manufacturer, UltraTech is leading the industry in adoption of low-carbon technologies and processes to build a greener future.