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Homegrown aluminium and copper maker Hindalco has entered the 2019 edition of the S-P Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) with the score placing the Aditya Birla Group's metal flagship among the world's top three aluminium companies.
DJSI is the global standard for measuring and advancing corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices.
Hindalco, a new addition this year, is one of the 98 companies in the Emerging Markets Index and one of the twelve Indian companies this year to make it to the list.
"This achievement demonstrates how well sustainability has become entrenched in Hindalco," said Satish Pai, MD at HIndalco.
"The 3 key pillars of our performance have been Resilience in a low LME environment, given our focus on resource security and a diversified, balanced product mix; reliability through focus on manufacturing excellence, supplier risk assessment - mitigation and customer centricity; and responsibility with our focus on environment sustainability, safety and people initiatives.'
"More importantly, this assessment has given us a scorecard to identify areas that require attention and work to improve these.
The DJSI scoring makes us even more committed to deliver more value going forward," Pai said.
Extracting aluminium from its oxide requires the usage of an electrolytic process that consumes huge amounts of energy.
However, it can be recycled infinitely and recycling of aluminium uses 95% less energy than producing the primary metal.
As part of its efforts to step up its use of sustainable manufacturing practices, the company has commissioned a 30 MW captive solar plant in Odisha and a 4 MW captive hydel power plant in Maharashtra.
It has also developed the country's first lightweight aluminium bulker that has the potential to save 13,000 litres of fuel annually.
It recently also launched a recyclable packaging material aimed at substituting use of plastic.
