The 82-page comprehensive report 'Accelerating ESGbility, Strengthening Sustainability' details the measures taken to enhance the ESG quotient at Aditya Birla's group businesses
Driven by its long-term vision of becoming a leader in championing sustainable business practices, the Aditya Birla Group heralds the dawn of a new era - the Sustainability Journey 2.0, where we are adopting the 4-D (dimensional) approach and transitioning to an ESG-based model of sustainability.
'Accelerating ESGbility, Strengthening Sustainability', the Group's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance report for FY2021, details 16 material areas, which forms the common minimum ESG agenda at the Group level mapped against key stakeholder expectations. Here are some of the key highlights:
1. Occupational Health and Safety
ABG is committed to protect all stakeholders from harm due to its business activities. In this endeavour, the ABG Life Saving Rules are an important aspect of the safety culture. Further, continuous focus is on the prevention of long-term chronic illnesses in our colleagues and to mitigate their exposures to health risks in the workplace. The continued focus led to a 38% reduction in Lost Time Incidents in FY2021 and 193,505 behaviour-based safety observation rounds.
2. COVID-19 response
A 'caring and giving' philosophy is embedded in ABG's ethos. To reduce the health impact of COVID-19, the Group took utmost care of its employees, partners and the society at large. ABG's war against the pandemic saw:
- 1 million+ triple-layer surgical masks distributed
- 130,000+ sanitisers, soaps, and disinfectants given away
- 90,000+ PPEs distributed to frontline workers
- 743 oxygen concentrators deployed across 125 ABG locations
- Rs4 billion donated to the PMCARES fund
- 2 million people reached in rural areas and urban slums through community sanitisation measures
- 1 million+ meals distributed
- 400,000 families supported through the 'Creating Resilient Communities' project
- 5,000 jumbo cylinders, 2,000 oxygen concentrators, and 36 PSA oxygen plants organised
- 100+ bed facility set up at Seven Hills hospital in Mumbai
- 64 rural quarantines centres supported
3. Diversity and inclusion
With 140,000+ employees including 50,000+ millennials and 25,000 women, diversity is a way of life at ABG. Inclusion holds the key to unleash the true potential of ABG's diverse workforce and build robust teams. There has been an 11% increase in women hired in FY2022 as compared to FY2021.
4. Empowering communities
ABG has always championed the cause of empowering communities to achieve better social inclusion and equitable growth. Our CSR motto is to 'Engage. Uplift. Empower'. The Group invested over Rs5 billion in FY2021 towards the development of communities through model villages, healthcare, education, sustainable livelihoods, and infrastructure development. Select initiatives as part of its FY21 CSR efforts include:
- USD70 million spent on COVID relief measures
- 1million patients treated annually in 5,000 medical camps and 20 hospitals
- 100 million children immunised against polio, BCG, DPT and Hepatitis-B
- 46,500 children being educated in 56 schools
- 450,000 school children provided with solar lamps
- 63,000 children in 268 schools given mid-day meals every day
- 100,000 people given skills training
5. Human rights management
ABG's Human Rights Management Standard entails promulgating a human rights policy, and conducting human rights due diligence (HRDD). A bespoke HRDD tool was developed for notifying company authorities about potential human rights impacts on stakeholders.
6. Talent development
ABG supports the all-round development of its employees through strategically designed learning and development programmes and well-designed e-learning through the Gyanodaya Virtual Campus. The learning portal received a renewed boost in engagement with 300,000 learning hours per year being registered. Average adoption of the platform stood at 89%.
7. Decarbonisation
Group Chairman Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla announced the Group's aspiration to achieve net Zero Carbon emissions by 2050. Setting public targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption have been significant to ABG's decarbonisation commitment.
8. Waste to wealth for circularity
ABG's businesses have been at the forefront of circularity in the last few years. The Group has set an ambitious target of Zero Waste to Landfill. Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Ltd. has already achieved Zero Waste to Landfill across all its nine facilities. ABG's businesses are realigning their waste management and resource procurement approach to shift from a linear to a circular economy via recycling and reuse. As part of these efforts, 10 million+ tonnes of waste were reused, recycled, or utilised by ABG's businesses.
9. Water Resilience
The Group has taken an audacious target to reduce the specific freshwater consumption per ton of product by 50% by 2025 from 2015 levels. The Group harvested a total of 70 million m³ in FY21, of which 85% was from surface sources. There has been a 12.26% Y-O-Y increase in quantum of water recylced compared to FY20.
In tandem with the Group initiatives, businesses have also set a roadmap to become water positive and also become Zero Liquid discharge facilities. UltraTech and Birla Cellulose converted mine pits into reservoirs. The water harvested also supports nearby communities and industries in securing their water supply.
10. Biodiversity management
ABG's partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature has led to the development of a Group-wide Biodiversity Policy, Technical Standard, and Guidance Notes. These are geared to help the Group to manage biodiversity based on a No Net Loss approach. This target is aligned with the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
11. Governance
The Group has institutionalised a robust Sustainable Business Framework (ABG SBF) and associated governance system to achieve its long-term sustainability vision of becoming the leading Indian conglomerate for sustainable business practices.
