Sustainability Updates

Water Positive for 9 consecutive years

Recognising that more than half of India’s districts are acutely water stressed, ITC has developed several water conservation initiatives to enhance its water positive footprint. These include adopting best available technologies and benchmarked practices to reduce specific water consumption, treat and recycle all wastewater and enhance rainwater harvesting both within units and in socially relevant areas.

In 2010-11, ITC Units withdrew 29.36 million kilolitres of freshwater, nearly 2% lower than the previous year (29.96 million KL in 2009-10). This is a noteworthy achievement given that there was significant growth in almost all businesses.

A large number of Business Units achieved substantial reduction in specific water consumption. What merits special mention is that ITC’s largest integrated Paper and Paperboards Unit at Bhadrachalam achieved a reduction of 7.7% in specific freshwater intake. This Unit alone accounted for 75.3% of total freshwater intake in ITC. The Cast Coating Unit at Bollaram also achieved significant reduction of 12.4% in specific freshwater intake over the previous year.

ITC’s Snacks Units of the Foods Division at Haridwar and Pune have also achieved significant savings in freshwater intake per tonne of product as illustrated below:

Foods Business (Snacks Unit)	2009-10 (Lit/kg)	2010-11 (Lit/kg)	Percentage Improvement
Haridwar	10.83	5.90	45.5
Pune	20.48	11.69	42.9

The Cigarette Units also improved their specific freshwater intake by 9.7% overall in comparison to last year. The Unit wise improvements are highlighted (Table 1).

The Packaging & Printing Units at Tiruvottiyur and Munger also reduced their specific water intake by 21.2% and 12.2 % respectively.

Table 1

	2009-10 (KL/Million Cigarettes equivalent)	2010-11 (KL/Million Cigarettes equivalent)	Percentage Improvement
Munger	5.38	4.60	14.4
Bengaluru	4.14	3.67	11.6
Saharanpur	4.51	4.24	6.03
Kidderpore	2.95	2.61	11.4

Table 2

Water Balance at ITC	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Freshwater intake	32.7	29.96	29.36
Treated effluents discharged	24.5	23.41	22.21
Percentage of treated effluent utilised for irrigation by nearby farming community	72.3%	84.8%	60.7%
Net water consumption	8.2	6.55	7.15
RWH potential created within ITC Units	0.5	0.42	0.92
RWH potential* created through watershed projects (till 31st March 2011)	19.5	20.18	18.97
Total RWH potential* created (till 31st March 2011)	19.9	20.60	19.89

Units in Million KL, except percentage.
* Amount of rainwater harvested in a year is dependent upon the actual rainfall and the rainfall pattern.

Many of ITC’s Hotels also achieved savings in specific water intake. These include: ITC Grand Central – 5.8%, ITC Windsor – 11%, WelcomHotel Sheraton New Delhi – 16.2%, WelcomHotel Sheraton Chola – 20.3% and WelcomHotel Sheraton Rajputana – 10.6%.

Zero Effluent Discharge: The Cigarette Factories at Bengaluru, Saharanpur & Pune, Leaf Processing Plants at Anaparti & Chirala, Packaging & Printing Unit at Tiruvottiyur, Research Centres at Bengaluru & Rajahmundry, Paperboards Units at Kovai and Bollaram and ITC Green Centre at Gurgaon recycled all their treated effluents within the Unit.

Rainwater Harvesting: ITC continued to create rainwater harvesting structures both at the Company premises and through external watershed development projects in socially relevant areas.

As on 31st March 2011, the total rainwater harvesting potential created by the Company is over two times the total net water consumed by its operations.

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