Responsible Sourcing of Wood Fibre
Wood is the major source of fibre for the paper and paperboard industry. Availability of wood remains a major challenge and is a serious sustainability concern, especially in a country with severe natural resource crunch and acute income inequities.
Close to 50% of the total fibre requirements of ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division is met by the Bhadrachalam factory's pulping operations, another 23% comes from recycled fibre, processed at Kovai and Bhadrachalam and the balance is purchased pulp used at the Bhadrachalam and Tribeni units. 99.42% of fibre manufactured in Bhadrachalam is from wood grown under the social and farm forestry initiatives and the balance (0.58%) is sourced through Government and Forest Department wood auctions. Fibre for operations at the Kovai Unit is totally sourced from recycled waste. Efforts continue to enhance the quantity of fibre certified to FSC® (Forest Stewardship Coucil®) requirements. This is in line with the commitments made by the Company as part of the WWF GFTN membership. Internal R & D efforts have resulted in high yielding, site specific, disease resistant eucalyptus and subabul clones and also extensive knowledge of plantation management practices. ITC distributed 66.59 million high quality saplings to farmers and planted 13,333 hectares during the year.
Apart from the obvious benefits of increasing the green cover, this initiative also directly contributes to in-situ moisture conservation, ground water recharge and significant reduction in topsoil losses due to wind and water erosion. As a result of the leaf litter from multi species plantations and the promotion of leguminous intercrops, depleted soils are constantly enriched.
ITC does not buy wood-based raw materials from unidentified sources. The Bhadrachalam and Kovai factories which are the only units in ITC with pulping facilities, ensure traceability of all the fibre used in the manufacturing process and are certified to FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) Chain-of-Custody standards. |
