Dear Readers,
In our journey as a sustainable organization, we have come a long way. This report has been presented as a means for disclosure of UPL's triple bottom line initiatives. We believe that growth does not only pertain to the economic domain but also to the environmental and social domains. Our aim is to reduce environmental footprint with simultaneous monitoring. Driven by excellence, various initiatives have been launched to strengthen our systems and processes, create stakeholder value and improve relations with our customers. We are happy to publish the data on our environmental and social performance with our stakeholders.
Sandra Shroff
Vice Chairman, UPL Limited
UPL is dedicated to its role for the upliftment of society and creating shared value. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy defines the guidelines for implementation and monitoring of our CSR activities. Our CSR projects range from improvement of education and ensuring requisite healthcare facilities for the development of the communities at large. The long term view towards the development of rural areas, has been the focus of our activities. Our core CSR values of Care, Excellence and Sustainability provides impulsion to meet the vision of the company. More than 3 lakh people have been benefitted from our CSR programmes for which we spent a total of INR 20.36 crore.
We place paramount importance to health and safety and continue to strive for becoming a safer company. We understand the impacts of our operations and processes and have invested in processes and practices to enhance operational safety. We have taken adequate measures to provide better employee health standards. As a commitment to Safety Vision 2018, the company would continue to work towards its safety mechanisms. To achieve our goal of zero accidents, we have also made investments in state of the art manufacturing facilities.
Committed to the Environment Management System (EMS) and the OHSAS, we continuously engage with all stakeholders to increase awareness on safety across our plants which aid in achieving operational excellence.
Reinstating our allegiance to the chemical industry's Responsible Care™ initiative, we have set out the basic principles for the initiative in our Global Environmental Footprint Reduction Plan. UPL is also a member of the WBCSD which reflects our commitment towards sustainability and creating sustainable agriculture. We have ISO 9001:2015 certification for Quality Management Systems, ISO 14001:2015 certification for Environmental Management System and OHSAS 18001:2007 certification for Occupational Health & Safety.
To lower our emissions and effluents, we have made substantial investments in various systems which reflects our concern for the environment. A dedicated Green Cell has been established which addresses environmental issues across all the manufacturing plants. We also have achieved Zero liquid discharge at 60% of our operating sites globally by the installation of state of the art effluent treatment & recycling plants. We are also determined to reduce our environmental footprint 30% by 2020.
People are the wealth of the organisation and our principle focus is on recruiting and retaining the best skill from the available talent pool. We possess some of the best engineers and agronomists and have also employed professionals from the local geographies to enhance our global business. These teams work on optimizing product quality and reducing costs. Several benefits and facilities are extended to our employees as a part of our HR policy. Training programs relevant for each sector are imparted to majority of our employees on a regular basis.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The SDGs cover social and economic development issues including poverty, hunger, health, education, global warming, gender equality, water, sanitation, energy, urbanization, environment and social justice. We would continue our efforts on aligning ourselves to these goals and realizing our motto of “Sustainability to All”. We have joined hands with a forum of 'Global Citizen' that works towards achieving these goals.
This report provides insights on our efforts to achieve each sustainability milestone. Strict norms are followed across the organization and we ensure the highest level of regulatory compliance. To measure the progress of our activities, we have voluntarily set targets to meet our sustainability objectives. We have emerged as one of the top five generic crop chemical produces as a result of combining many capabilities. It motivates us to work better as an organization and showing higher responsibility towards the people, planet and profit.