Charting New Horizons in Sustainability

The sustainability ethos is embedded into Hindustan Zinc’s business model. It drives our efforts to enhance growth and deliver value to all our stakeholders, including the natural environment in which we live and thrive. Led by our sustainability focus, we continually endeavour to reduce the environmental footprint of our operations. In line with the national and international standards, as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), we continue to make strategic investments in sustainable initiatives across our business value chain. The Company’s leadership vision is also mapped to this approach, articulated as a clearly defined roadmap to propel our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) journey. In 2020, we had identified our Sustainability Goals 2025, and pledged to work assiduously towards the realisation of these objectives. Even as we continue to progress on these targets, we concurrently ensure that these goals remain aligned to the evolving business ecosystem and the transforming sustainability landscape, with its changing demands and opportunities.

Driven by our Sustainability Goals 2025, and steered by our ‘ZERO HARM, ZERO WASTE, ZERO DISCHARGE’ philosophy, we, at Hindustan Zinc, continually strive to deliver on our targets across ESG metrics. The achievement of numerous milestones on this front year-on-year validates our efforts and provides us many reasons to celebrate these victories along our sustainability and inclusive growth journey.

Hindustan Zinc Sustainability Governance Framework

Our three-tiered sustainability governance framework headed by a Sustainability Committee at each level, enables us to organise our thoughts and ideas, undertake informed planning, evaluate our ESG activities and ensure accountability on all facets of ESG issues. This framework also assists with defining our short-term and long-term goals, and to effectively monitor our performance systematically in alignment with our sustainability principles across the organisation.

Sustainability and ESG Committee of the Board

The constitution of a separate Sustainability and ESG Committee at the Board level has helped to scale our sustainability focus and efforts. The four-member committee holds its meetings on a half-yearly basis.

The Committee’s Role

• Assist the Board in meeting its responsibilities in ESG matters and ensure strong governance for sustainability
• Provide guidance to ensure continual improvement in our sustainability performance and implementation of appropriate processes and policies across the Company
• Guide and review our sustainability strategy, and long-term goals and targets
• Play a key strategic role in business decisions to ensure workplace safety, eliminate potential damage to the environment, enhance our commitment towards stakeholders and maintain the Company’s reputation as a leader in the sustainable metal and mining sector

Committee Composition

Mr. Akhilesh Joshi

Non-Executive - Independent Director - Chairperson

Mr. Arun Misra

Executive Director - Member

Ms. Nirupama Kotru

Non-Executive - Nominee Director - Member

Ms. Veena Kumari Dermal

Non-Executive - Nominee Director - Member

Sustainability Committee at Executive Level

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hindustan Zinc chairs the Executive Sustainability Committee which includes all the Executive Committee members and chairmen of our 10 communities. The Committee meets once a month to review the progress on the Sustainability Goals 2025. Its responsibilities include:

• To formulate the sustainability strategy, and set long-term goals and targets of the Company
• Consistently track the status of projects identified to meet the sustainability goals along with the progress against all goals; guide the strategic allocation of resources for achievement of the Sustainability Goals 2025

We have set up 10 sustainability communities to drive our eight Sustainability Goals 2025. Comprising champions from all units, the communities regularly review progress against their respective goals. They meet on a monthly basis to discuss the action plan to achieve the goals, initiate collaboration with technology partners, identify relevant projects and ensure its implementation on ground.

Sustainability Communities

Energy and Carbon Community

Waste to Wealth Community

Biodiversity Community

Water Management Community

Central Occupational Health & Safety Council

People Community

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Community

Supply Chain Community

Communication Community

Finance Community

SBU ESG Committee

We have established the SBU ESG Committee at all our strategic business units (SBUs). It ensures the implementation of sustainability practices pertaining to ESG aspects in alignment with the guidance provided by the committees at the above two tiers to achieve the sustainability goals for 2025. This Committee also ensures continual identification and monitoring of risk arising at the location, its impact and appropriate mitigation efforts to minimise or eliminate the risk.

Climate Change

0.5 mn tCO₂e greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings in our operations from base year 2017

• Use of renewable energy
• Electrification of vehicles
• Efficiency improvements
• Reduction in non-GHG emission (SOx and NOx emission) by 17% by 2025

Water Stewardship

Become 5x water positive company and achieve 25% reduction in freshwater consumption

• Exploring alternative water sources
• Reduction in freshwater consumption through technological interventions
• Rainwater harvesting
• Transition from wet tailings disposal to dry tailings disposal by 2025

Circular Economy

3x Increase in gainful utilisation of smelting process waste

• Eliminate generation of landfill waste
• Gainful utilisation of waste in other industries
• Metal recovery from residue

Social Impact

Positively impact one million lives through social, economic and environmental initiatives

• Strengthen the local economy
• Promote skilling and education in the region
• Improve quality of life of communities around us

Biodiversity Conservation

Protect and enhance biodiversity throughout the life cycle

• Reassessment of biodiversity and development of biodiversity management plan
• Implementation of critical/ endangered species conservation plan
• Achieve one million plantations by 2025
• Achieve ‘no net deforestation’ through compensatory afforestation whenever applicable, throughout the life cycle

Diversity in Workforce

Inclusive and diverse workplace with 30% diversity

• Improve diversity in the organisation
• Review current policies and frame new conducive policies
• Developing/grooming high potential diversity employees through various programmes

Ensuring Zero Harm

Zero work-related fatalities and 50% reduction in total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR)

• Safety culture transformation
• Visible felt leadership
• Critical risk management
• Process safety management
• Business partner engagement
• Technology and innovation

Responsible Sourcing

100% responsible sourcing in the supply chain

• Implementation of responsible sourcing guidelines of London Metal Exchange (LME) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) framework
• Supplier sustainability assessment
• Human rights training and awareness
• Ensuring local procurement

Circular Economy – A Key Strategic Priority

The mining industry plays a significant role in promoting a circular economy. Zinc, in particular, can contribute immensely to a circular economy on account of its recyclable properties, coupled with versatility and durability. Zinc’s longevity and resilience, support the sustainability and reliability of various sectors, making it the preferred choice for long-lasting sustainable solutions.

The mining industry’s focus on circular economy is driven by the adoption of advanced technologies and techniques to minimise waste. These techniques can also help to maximise resource recovery, thus boosting conservation of resources, a key factor in promoting a circular economy. The industry strategy aims to provide for conservation of natural resources, reduction in waste generation, boosting energy efficiency and reduction in the environmental impact of mining operations.

Besides undertaking strategic sustainability goals, we continued to drive our ongoing technological and operational initiatives towards realisation of our circular economy goals.

Our circular economy focus is centred around:

• Promotion of responsible material production with an unwavering focus on conservation of natural resources
• Implementation of advanced mining techniques to minimise waste and maximise resource recovery
• Optimisation of the refining process for efficient extraction of zinc and valuable by-products
• Investment in energy-efficient practices to minimise the environmental impact of our operations

Driven by our sustainability goal of achieving a ‘3x increase in the gainful utilisation of smelting process waste’, our Waste to Wealth Community is continually working on this objective to identify ways for recycling and gainful utilisation of the waste we generate during the manufacturing process. The community regularly monitors and reviews the progress of implementation and formulates relevant strategies to achieve the identified sustainability goal.

Some of the key initiatives undertaken during FY 2022-23 to make our methods and processes more efficient, sustainable, and environment-friendly included the following:

Cementitious materials production from mine waste

Our Company shares a commitment to responsible mining practices and management of mine tailings to minimise harm to the environment and mitigate the impact of climate change. We are working on a pilot trial with a Calgary-based technology company which has developed the capability to use mine waste to produce cement like materials, that serve to save resources, lower environmental impact and potentially reduce GHG emissions.

We achieved a 31.01% waste recycling (mines & smelters) in FY 2022-23

Value-added product from smelter waste residue

Hindustan Zinc has enhanced the intensity of its research and development (R&D) through investments in skilled scientists and technical facilities. Collaborations with worldclass universities and institutes, technology providers and start-ups are an essential part of our innovation process.

• We are committed to achieving the goal of zero waste and thereby eliminate the need for waste disposal in secure landfills (SLF) by 2030 by continually directing our R&D efforts towards utilisation of in-process waste into various segments of our processes
• We are progressing on our efforts to extract the zinc (Zn) content of the effluent treatment plant (ETP) cake and convert it into ZnSO₄ crystals on a lab scale, suitable for use as a Zn-depressant in our mills
• Our R&D team has developed a laboratory process to recover manganese (Mn) from Mn residue in the form of Mn₃O₄ product. The process will be further validated on a pilot scale to develop product specifications and explore the potential market

Our ability to create value for our stakeholders over the long-term depends on our ability to remain reliable and responsive. This begins by recognising our responsibility to use our resources sensibly while taking action to reduce our environmental and social impacts. To achieve this, we continually review, assess, and improve our performance with respect to ESG aspects, set industry-leading standards and apply the latest technologies in all aspects of our operations in alignment with our vision of ‘Zero Harm, Zero Waste, Zero Discharge’.

We ensure widespread reach of our ESG goals to each and everyone working with us contributing towards a better future. Aiming towards net-zero emissions to achieving zero liquid discharge, underscores our unwavering commitment towards creating a positive environment. Safety and well-being of our employees is of paramount importance, unfortunately, this year we had lost seven of our colleagues in tragic incidents, we are working on various safety measures like critical risk management, structural stability, automation to reduce manual intervention to avoid such incidents in future. We will continue to earnestly work towards creating a safe workplace for our employees & business partners and improve safety measures.

Our efforts to implement ESG-centric initiatives establishes our commitment to sustainable business practices, making us a proud leader in the metal & mining sector globally and as demonstrated by the numerous ESG-related awards and accolades we have been presented with, we are steadfastly advancing towards our Sustainability Goals 2025, with the ultimate aim of enhancing our stakeholders’ value for the long term.

Pradeep Singh

Chief HSE & Sustainability Officer

Calotropis Procera – A species of flowering plant at Agucha mine site Photo courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Team

Initiative – Workshop on Circular Economy

As part of its efforts to transition to a circular economy, Hindustan Zinc conducted a workshop on ‘collaborative approach for circular economy‘ during the year. Important stakeholders from cement companies came together to share the discourse around this workshop theme. The discussion revolved around effective utilisation of our industrial waste such as jarofix, pyrometallurgical slag, etc., which has the potential for large scale use in the cement industry and can help to achieve our sustainability goals. Our CEO also shared his views on the need for a collaborative approach among industries to steer the vision of a greener tomorrow.