B. WATER STEWARDSHIP
Water is a critical natural resource that is essential to our business operations, and we recognise that the responsible management of water is crucial to our long-term sustainability. We have implemented a water stewardship program to ensure that we use water responsibly, minimise our impact on local communities, and protect water resources for future generations.
Water Management Strategy:
Our sites in India are assessed on water stress risk in line with guidance from Central Ground Water Board (‘CGWB’) groundwater block classification as recommended by SEBI under BRSR disclosure. As of 31st March 2023, none of our manufacturing plants falls under the water-stressed area.
Our plants are located in different geographies for which we evaluated both scenarios - RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 for acute and chronic risk analysis as part of climate risk assessment. The details of drought risk have been discussed in the climate change adaptation section.
We have developed a comprehensive water management strategy that includes risk assessment, water conservation, and replenishment in and around our manufacturing locations.
Our on-site projects are focussed on reducing freshwater consumption and increasing the share of recycled water in our processes. The use of rainwater in the process is one of the important focus areas along with efficiency improvement.
Specific Non-Process Water Consumption at paint manufacturing plants
Our focus has been on the reduction of our non-process water consumption. These involve the adoption of water-efficient
technologies and enhancing recycling and reuse. Our focussed and sustained efforts have resulted in a specific non-process
water reduction of 53% since FY 2013-14.
For the last several years, we have been partnering with our communities to
improve the availability of water in the ecosystem near our plants by increasing the
infrastructure to harvest rainwater.
We implement integrated watershed development in villages nearby our factories to
improve their water security. We undertake initiatives like pond cleaning, desilting,
check-dams, irrigation canal lining, training farmers on micro-irrigation systems, and
integrated pest and soil health management.
Significant and sustained investment in the creation of the harvesting and recharging
potential over the years coupled with better rains, helped us replenish 382% of
the freshwater consumed in our paint manufacturing sites in FY 2022-23. This has
ensured the strengthening of ecosystem services for water supplementation for
indoor use, water supplementation for food production, and groundwater recharge.
The details of the community water projects undertaken during the year can be found in the community section
