We believe that a holistic approach as well as responsible and informed choices can lead to solutions that are sustainable. Our actions and approach to achieve environmental stewardship include energy and water efficiency, waste management, renewable energy and greener manufacturing processes and technologies. GHCL is driven by the spirit of innovation and is continuously focusing upon sustainable products, packaging innovations.
As a group we acknowledge the risk of climate change and its implication. Efforts in energy efficiency measures and enhancement of renewable energy portfolio (in Textile business>) is our contribution towards mitigation of climate change. To make our journey more prolific and specific, we have embarked GHG inventorisation project with the aim of developing business specific road map for GHG mitigation.
We place great emphasis on developing greenery and landscaping as an in-built environmental protection measure in and around our operations. Product & packaging innovation provide us ample opportunities to contribute towards environmental safeguard and sustainability and we have been constantly working in this direction. Our textile division’s ‘Rekoop’ product is a testimony in support of our commitment.
While maintaining an emphasis on production and productivity at our mining areas, GHCL has adopted a strategic approach towards mine safety, management of natural and shared resources. We are strongly committed towards responsible mining practices during extraction of lignite, limestone and salt. Our salt manufacturing aids the environment by having a low energy input, minimal industrial impact on the environment compared to other land use and provides sanctuary forbirds and animals.
We believe and promote sustainability across our value chains as it will not only help in mitigating the business risk but also will serve as a key component of influencing the decision making. We have launched a group wide supply chain sustainability project with aim of identifying suppliers who have system in alignment with GHCL’s sustainability approach and promotes such suppliers for a long term relationship with us.
Some example of interventions at GHCL highlighting our commitment towards environmental protection:
We endeavour to achieve health and safety stewardship through the goal of “ZeroHarm” i.e. to achieve zero injuries in producing our products & services. We work towards institutionalising a culture of safety across our divisions with adherence to industrial safety rules and regulations. We initiate safety awareness programs like celebration of National Safety Day at our locations to reinforce the spirit of safety among our employees. We have also launched HSE Stewardship programmes across our location to promote HSE responsibilities and accountabilities amongst line function. Identified stewards are capacitated to deliver their objectives with robust performance tracking and incentive systems in place.
Periodic EHS trainings are undertaken to foster safety awareness and responsibility among our workforce and thereby imbibing the concept of safety within our business culture.
We consider legal compliance as one of the cornerstones of an effective and efficient Corporate Governance framework. In early 2017, we commissioned a large global consulting firm to help us create a new, more comprehensive compliance monitoring mechanism. Through collaboration, we created a customized repository of legal compliances applicable for our large businesses, identified roles in the organisational hierarchy that would be responsible for ensuring the compliance and prepared an online dashboard to review the status of legal compliance. An online dashboard is available with the management to review the status of legal compliance across businesses, locations, departments, legislation categories, and period etc.
We have clearly spelt out guidelines to ensure that we engage in fair labour practices. This includes payment of minimum wages, protection of human rights, prevention of child/forced labour and encouragement of health and safety best practices.
We try to anticipate short and long-term expectations of our customers. Our marketing and technology team meets the customer groups at regular interval throughout the year. GHCL is committed towards continuous improvement in its business processes by implementing globally accepted standards such as ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14000: 2015 and OHSAS 18001:2007.
GHCL envisions itself to achieve the carbon reduction or neutrality through several innovative solutions with our contribution in war against climate change. We embarked our journey in developing a supply chain sustainability model, alleviating any sustainability risk from supplier’s side. Ensuring a safe and healthy working environment is our top priority and we are committed to deliver, ‘Zero Harm’. Our Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) policy, objectives, standards and working procedures are designed to make GHCL a very safe and healthy place to work in. Through a formal materiality assessment process, we have identified business level sustainability material issues and developed time bound road map for each business to leapfrog our overall performance which shall be made part of public disclosure going forward.
Our understanding of sustainability extends beyond protection of the environment and incorporates our corporate governance, workplace practices and responsibility to the community. These elements have underpinned our business for more than a decade, though we have more recently developed a framework that will help us manage our performance to ensure our business continues to grow for generations to come.
Sustainability is integral to our core business objectives. To embed sustainability in our business and operations we are focusing our efforts on addressing the material issues like environment management, community and employee welfare & engagement in order to ensure our sustained growth whilst simultaneously realizing the core values. As we deal with the challenges posed by these issues while striving to achieve sustainable growth, we look forward to proactively pursue business opportunities that add value to society.
At GHCL, we believe we are the custodians of the natural resources. Hence we imbibe sustainability in our culture for all our businesses and ensure that we leave behind a positive legacy for generations to come.
