ITC is getting closer to becoming the first corporation to turn both water and carbon positive and also achieve zero solid waste discharge. It is already water positive three years in a row and has achieved 86% carbon sequestration and 80% solid waste recycling.

ITC's efforts in the field of energy conservation, its use of carbon neutral fuels, sourcing of renewable energy and large scale tree plantations through social and farm forestry have resulted in ITC sequestering 85.36% of the carbon dioxide emitted by its operations. ITC's farm and social forestry plantations, covering 29,230 hectares (19,500 hectares till 2003-04), enabled sequestration of 85.6% of greenhouse gases emitted during the year, up from 18% in 2002-03. In the current financial year, plantations have already covered over 40,000 hectares, getting ITC even closer to turning carbon positive.

Intense R&D has resulted in the productivity of these plantations, doubling in the last few years. A study by experts from the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, has shown that the above and below ground biomass contributes 71% carbon sink additional to the carbon dioxide sequestered by pulpable wood. For the third successive year, ITC continued to be a 'water positive corporation', which essentially implies that rainwater harvesting (RWH) potential generated to date exceeds the total consumption of water by all units of the company. ITC created rainwater harvesting potential of 16. 86 billion litres during 2004-05, three times the net water consumption of 5.43 billion litres by all its units. Progressive reduction of specific water consumption has resulted in a 43% drop over the last two years.

Simultaneously, there has been a 32% increase in rainwater harvesting potential from 12.74 billion litres to 16.86 billion litres over the same period. Over 91% of water drawn by ITC was used by its three large paperboards and specialty paper units. Special efforts were, therefore, directed towards water conservation and reducing specific water consumption in these units. In the Bhadrachalam pulp and paperboards unit, while the production since 1998-99 has gone up by 60%, actual water consumption has gone down by 1%. ITC's businesses continued efforts to reduce waste and achieve 100% recycling.

In 2004-05, 80.5% of the total waste generated was recycled (53.3% in 2003-04). Significant progress was made by a large number of units towards achieving zero solid waste, through reduction or elimination of waste at source, coupled with recycling and reused practices. The cigarette factory at Kolkata, the Leaf processing factory at Chirala, the packaging & Printing unit at Tiruvottiyur, the Cast coating unit at Bollarum and the ITC Grand Central Hotel at Mumbai achieved zero solid waste status through 100% recycling. In these units, the waste generated was either reused internally or totally recycled.