Ambuja Cement has become the first Indian cement company to qualify and be awarded the prestigious certification on
sustainable product labelling, ‘PRO-SUSTAIN’ by a leading global certification body, DNV Business Assurance. It has
been obtained for our Darlaghat operations. The ‘PRO-SUSTAIN’
certification implies that the Company promotes the adoption of
responsible and cost effective measures for incorporating
sustainability into product design, development, production, and
supply chain management. The ‘PRO-SUSTAIN’ product label will be
used on our cement bags. This extensive and detailed assessment
became necessary when we realised that our stakeholders wanted
to be assured on the sustainability performance of our products and
business processes. To this end, Ambuja embarked on this initiative
with independent experts.
The initiative involved a robust
assessment and labelling process in keeping with the best
sustainability practices. The entire process has been very gratifying
as it enabled us to measure, improve, and demonstrate the
sustainability performance of our value chain including product
manufacture, distribution, and marketing. This certification has
provided recognition to both the sustainability management efforts of
Ambuja, and the performance of our product. Being one of the trusted, leading cement manufacturers
in India, Ambuja strives to set a benchmark for the quality
of cement. The major areas of focus are raw materials, fuel,
and innovative product development.
The environmental
impact of our cement production has reduced over the
years. Cement being a commodity, use-oriented figures
are not measured.
The Company uses HDPE bags for packing cement; it also
uses bio-degradable paper bags for selected cement
markets. As it is practically not possible to collect cement
bags from markets, Ambuja has demonstarted its
leadership as a responsible company by
co-processing
more plastic wastes collected from other sources than the
quantity of HDPE bags it uses.
The environmental impact of transporting goods and
materials for the organisation’s operations, and even
transporting members of the workforce, has reduced
over the years. Bulk cement transportation through sea
routes has been in practice since 1993. Today, Ambuja
owns 10 ships for transportation of products and other
raw materials. Ambuja has just initiated Scope 3
emissions measurement. |
 
We have invested in energy efficient equipment, upgradation
of pollution control equipment (air, water, noise, waste),
dust suppression systems, rainwater harvesting systems,
green belt development, environmental training and
awareness, road sweeping machines, certifications etc.
The Company incurred an expenditure of over Rs. 420
million for environment protection during the year.
As on 31 December, 2014, there were eight cases pending
in different courts. No formal grievance has been filed about
environmental impacts through grievance mechanisms
during the reporting period. |
