Environment

Environment

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Caring For Our Habitat

At AIL, we endeavour to become a knowledge-leader and sustainable organisation and are committed to reducing our environmental footprint. We understand that our operations have an impact on the planet, and thus it’s not just a responsibility but a moral obligation to ensure minimal impact on the planet. From product development to our daily operational activities, environmental consciousness is at the core of everything that we do. We are dedicated to being accountable and making meaningful strides towards our commitment to sustainability. Transparency being paramount to us, we strive to communicate our progress, success and challenges transparently through our Sustainability Report. We strive to not only enhance the environmental performance of our processes but also reduce the carbon footprint of our products by implementing sustainable business practices and supporting sustainability efforts across our entire value chain.

Our environment-friendly production processes include Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) for new projects. EIAs helps us to prepare a mitigation plan to address the potential impact of our projects on the environment. As an outcome of these studies, we choose the right technology at the design stage itself to ensure minimal impact on the environment and communities around us. For the existing projects, we have set up Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and compliance is regularly assessed through Aarti Management System (AMS).

We utilise water for various purposes such as heating and cooling, producing steam, preparing solvents and reaction media, extractive or absorptive reagents, product rinsing, distillation, and washing in their chemical processing operations. Our processes are water-intensive. Hence,long-term water availability is a challenge we foresee. We aim to become self-sufficient in our water consumption and its associated risks by mapping various factors and considerations. Water conservation and management are of utmost importance to us. All our manufacturing locations monitor water related data on a daily basis and keep a record of the same. This approach helps us in prioritising our objective of water positivity in the future. Our major focus is on recycling water back into operations to reduce dependency on fresh water supply. Towards this objective, we are strategizing to achieve zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) for our facilities.

We have adopted the 3R approach of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ to reduce our water wastage. The total water recycled during FY 2022-23 was 11,30,511 KL as against 10,29,293 KL in FY 2021-22. We have recycled steam condensate of about 50% in boilers. Our various measures like ZLD facilities, steam/ MEE condensate recovery, STP-treated water recycling and RO permeate recycling, among others have helped in recycling 44% of the water withdrawn.

We recognise the imminent threat of climate change to our business and have developed a detailed profile of risks and opportunities arising from climate change by carrying out physical and transitional risks assessment. We have further associated our time horizons to align with national climate action commitments and global climate goals.

Greenhouse gas emissions are mainly from the usage of fossil fuels and consumption of grid electricity. Our direct emissions include emissions from diesel and coal consumption within the boundaries of our premises while indirect emissions include emissions from purchased electricity consumption.

We ensure that our energy management practices are robust and efficient. We focus on energy efficiency and process optimisation methods to reduce our energy consumption and our dependence on fossil fuels.

We have adopted an IT-based Energy Management System (EnMS) to manage and optimise our energy demand and supply. Implementation of EnMS has provided efficient means of controlling, monitoring, and conserving energy.

As a speciality chemical company, we deal with substances that are inherently hazardous in nature. Based on our different operating scenarios and the kind of waste generated. We have divided our waste management approach into three priorities based on our different operating scenarios and the kind of waste generated. This systematic approach enables us to handle hazardous and non-hazardous waste responsibly and sustainably.

Our waste management policies are designed to comply with legal requirements and industry-best practices.

During FY 22-23, 4,95,676 MT of hazardous waste was generated, of which 92% of the waste was recycled and reused of which 37% was utilised in the same unit, and the rest, 55% was sent to other authorised recyclers. 6% of the total hazardous waste generated is sent to landfilling and rest 1% each to co-processing and incineration.

Complying with relevant laws and regulations is essential for any business to maintain its operations. At AIL, we are committed to abide by all environmental norms and regulations at our manufacturing operations and Corporate Office as set forth by the relevant regulatory authorities. To guarantee and adhere to the legal and regulatory framework, we have implemented a third-party managed IT-based Compliance Management System, which houses all applicable regulations and necessary compliances. It has an inbuilt alert system that notifies relevant personnel about upcoming compliance procedures. We have implemented a license module within our compliance management system to track all applicable licenses, their validity periods, and application processes. Our personnel are informed well in advance about the license renewal deadlines. We have set an internal quality control criterion of applying for renewals at least 90 days in advance to avoid delays in the renewal process. Thus, all enquiries related to environmental compliance are resolved promptly. We have established a compliance governance system to monitor compliance at different levels through internal audit protocols reviewed by the Company directors. We undergo focused third-party compliance audits of our systems and processes regarding compliance aspects. During FY 2022-23, we did not incur any fines or penalties with regard to any environmental violations. Moreover, we have adopted a proactive approach to ensure adherence to the best compliance management practices. We provide specialised training to our employees to stay informed about applicable regulations.

At AIL, we are commited to conduct Life Cycle Assessment of all our product by following cradle to gate approcah, LCA is "Compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle” (ISO 14040:2006, section 3.2).