Sustainability Development Goals

We will ensure sustainable profitability through the effective management of all processes and resources and the continuing innovation of products and services.

• We use all resources as efficiently as possible and target to earn a premium on our cost of capital.
• We invest substantially in R&D towards innovative low-carbon production technologies and products, and advance towards sustainable product portfolio.
• We are active in Green Building Councils and similar organisations in order to drive innovation of sustainable products together with our customers.

HC India’s Zero Harm Policy – “Come to Work Smiling and go back home smiling.”

We are committed to continuously enhancing the occupational health and safety conditions of our employees, contractors, and third parties.” Our moto - " Someone is waiting for you at Home" itself speaks about our aim to self educate our employees towards "coming to work smiling and going back home smiling."

• We will achieve zero fatalities.
• We will achieve zero lost time injuries.
• We will implement the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s WASH Pledge for access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene at all production sites.

We are committed to fulfilling our share of the global responsibility to keep temperature rise below 2°C, and we will continue to reduce our impacts on air, land and water.” Replicating the same at our plants, we have set a target "To achieve 2°C lower ambient temperature in our plants compared to that prevailing a Km away". Against the same we have already achieved a difference of 1.2°C.

Emission Control

To control the emission from our operations, we have upgraded our pollution control equipment and adopted best technology like SNCR to control NOx emissions well within the prescribed limits. These initiatives help us in:

• Reducing our carbon footprint.
• Increasing the use of alternative fuels.
• Reducing SOx and NOx emissions and dust.
• Permanently reduce all other air emissions below cement industry average.

Water & Wastewater management

Water is the lifeline of the planet and is the driving force of all nature, hence we always aim to

• Reduce water consumption at all our operational sites as far as feasible – both economically and technologically.
• Implement water management plans at all sites located in water scarce areas and aggregate them on a country level to form a water reduction master plan. With these practices, in 2020, we were 4.4x water positive i.e we consume 1.3 Billion litres of water while we harvested 5.7 Billion of water.

Conservation of Bio-diversity – A must:

• All mining plans are approved in accordance with the local authorities and the need of the local communities.
• Mining plan is reviewed and modified (if required) stagewise for biodiversity enhancement.
• Target to implement BMP (Biodiversity management plant) at nature conservation areas.
• Post Mining - Our target is to achieve a positive biodiversity index.
• All our sites are working as per the IBM (Indian bureau of mines) approved mining plan.

With these practices, HeidelbergCement India achieved a remarkable feat in conserving biodiversity by identifying 117 bird species at our limestone quarries. Out of which 86 were common residence, 31 winter migrants, and 5 species were listed as near threatened in ICUN list. The survey was spearheaded by Birdlife International which was partnered by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

We conserve our natural reserves by continuously increasing the use of alternative resources as substitutes for natural raw materials.

• We will continuously increase the substitution rate of natural raw materials by using by-products or recycled materials.

We are a 100% blended cement manufacturing company.

We are committed to support social and economic development of our neighboring communities and ensure transparent communication to all our stakeholders.

• We maintain open and transparent communication about our activities and performance.
• We help improve the living conditions in neighboring communities.

We adhere to international human rights, anti-corruption & labour standards and co-operate pro-actively in an open and transparent manner with all our stakeholders.

• We ensure compliance with international human rights, anti-corruption and labour standards through internal control and risk management systems, such as internal audits and a whistle-blower hotline.
• We ensure that our suppliers comply with our Supplier Code of Conduct.
• We ensure that each position is staffed with the most qualified person, independent from gender, origin, beliefs, and/or orientation.