The ITC story is among the most interesting of its kind from the corporate world. The company has redefined agri business with its innovative e-choupal network that has benefited over three million villagers in 30,000 villages. Chairman Y.C. Deveshwar tells The Times of India that e-choupals reflect ITC's corporate philosophy that seeks synergy between business growth and economic and social development :

How is the 'triple bottom line' relevant for India?

If India, with one-sixth of the world's population, follows the same path to economic progress as the G8 countries, the country will guzzle a mind-boggling volume of natural resources in the process. Mahatma Gandhi once poignantly highlighted this threat of environmental degradation when he said, "It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve prosperity. How many planets will a country like India require!" As India tries to accelerate its economic growth, it becomes even more important to understand how this growth will impact the human and physical environment. Sustainable development can be achieved only when economic growth benefits the poor and underprivileged who live on the fringes of society. A majority of these poor are in rural India. Sustainable development also similarly requires continuous replenishment and enrichment of environmental capital, which is getting alarmingly eroded today.

Herein lies the immediate relevance of the 'triple bottom line' accounting concept that ITC has adopted and is actively advancing. 'Triple bottom line' maps a company's performance along three dimensions - economic, environmental and social.

How can corporate India contribute to the 'triple bottom line'?

Today, the whole world is trying to address the critical issue of sustainability. The corporate sector has a special responsibility to contribute to this larger mission while achieving its business objectives. The Indian corporate sector, while generating economic surplus, needs to sharpen its focus on replenishing natural capital and on eliminating poverty through the creation of sustainable employment opportunities.

Isn't there an inherent conflict between the objectives of creating value for the shareholder and contributing to environmental and social capital?

Generally corporate social and environmental initiatives tend to be philanthropic and hence limited in scale. But ITC's creative endeavour has demonstrated that there is no inherent contradiction between the objectives of creating shareholder value and enhancing social and environmental capital. The creativity of the ITC model lies in ensuring that these two objectives mutually dovetail into and reinforce each other. The more the synergy, the more sustainable will be the model of growth and development.

How does the 'triple bottom line' approach manifest itself in ITC's business operations?

ITC's strategy to rapidly grow its paperboards business reflects this 'triple bottom line' approach. Ensuring sustained availability of high quality wood-based raw materials for paperboard manufacturing is an integral part of this growth strategy. ITC organises poor tribals with wastelands into self-supporting forest-user-groups. It organises training for these groups on growing high quality industrial timber as a viable crop. ITC also supplies them high-yielding disease-resistant clonal saplings, created through its in-house biotechnology research, for cultivation. Till date, 26,500 hectares of wastelands have been greened with 108 million saplings, providing livelihood opportunities for nearly 250,000 people, and creating a sustainable source of quality timber for ITC's paperboard manufacturing operations. ITC's trail-blazing e-choupal project also demonstrates the company's 'triple bottom line' philosophy. ITC's immediate business objective, of emerging as a cost-competitive exporter of high quality agricultural produce from India, has today evolved into a revolutionary movement that is helping enhance the competitiveness of the Indian farmer.

Can you elaborate on the e-choupal initiative?

ITC has created crop-specific content-rich local language websites with its enormous knowledge base in agriculture. To enable farmers readily access these local language websites right in their villages, ITC has set up Internet kiosks, or e-choupal installations, in the rural hinterland. Farmers can now instantly ascertain the prevalent Indian and international prices and price trends for their crops, learn best practices in cultivation, get expert knowledge and advice, buy agricultural inputs like fertilisers and pesticides online, and also get to know the micro-level local weather forecast.

The largest IT-based corporate intervention in rural India, e-choupals are transforming the lives of over three million farmers in 30,000 villages across six states. E-choupals have the potential to convert village populations into vibrant economic organisations. For shareholders and other stakeholders of ITC, the e-choupal network builds a unique low-cost fulfilment capacity for two-way flow of goods and services in and out of Indian villages. In turn, this creates a unique opportunity for creating new markets and generating economic surplus.