ITC constantly endeavours to benchmark its products, services and processes to global standards. The Company's pursuit of excellence has earned it national and international honours. ITC is one of the eight Indian companies to figure in Forbes A-List for 2004, featuring 400 of "the world's best big companies". Forbes has also named ITC among Asia's'Fab 50' and the World's Most Reputable Companies.

ITC has several firsts to its credit:

ITC is the first from India and among the first 10 companies in the world to publish its Sustainability Report in compliance (at the highest A+ level) with the latest G3 guidelines of the Netherlands-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a UN-backed, multistakeholder international initiative to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

ITC is the first Indian company and the second in the world to win the prestigious Development Gateway Award. It won the $100,000 Award for the year 2005 for its trailblazing ITC e-Choupal initiative which has achieved the scale of a movement in rural India. The Development Gateway Award recognizes ITC's e-Choupal as the most exemplary contribution in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development during the last 10 years. ITC e-Choupal won the Award for the importance of its contribution to development priorities like poverty reduction, its scale and replicability, sustainability and transparency.

ITC has won the inaugural 'World Business Award', the worldwide business award recognising companies who have made significant efforts to create sustainable livelihood opportunities and enduring wealth in developing countries. The award has been instituted jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the HRH Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF).

ITC is the first Corporate to receive the Annual FICCI Outstanding Vision Corporate Triple Impact Award in 2007  for its invaluable contribution to the triple bottom line benchmarks of building economic, social and natural capital for the nation.

 ITC has won the Golden Peacock Awards for 'Corporate Social Responsibility (Asia)' in 2007, the Award for ‘CSR in Emerging Economies 2005’ and ‘Excellence in Corporate Governance' in the same year. These Awards have been instituted by the Institute of Directors, New Delhi, in association with the World Council for Corporate Governance and Centre for Corporate Governance

 The Company's Green Leaf Threshing plants at Chirala and Anaparti in Andhra Pradesh are the first units of their kind in the world to get ISO 14001 environment management systems certification.

 ITC's cigarette factory in Kolkata is the first such unit in India to get ISO 9000 quality certification and the first among cigarette factories in the world to be awarded the ISO 14001 certification

 ITC Maurya in New Delhi is the first hotel in India to get the coveted ISO 14001 Environment Management Systems certification.

 ITC Filtrona is the first cigarette filter company in the world to obtain ISO 14001

 ITC Infotech finds pride of place among a select group of SEI CMM Level 5 companies in the world.

 ITC's Green Leaf Threshing plant in Chirala is the first in India and among the first 10 units in the world to bag the Social Accountability (SA 8000) certification

ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar has received several honours over the years. Notable among them are: