BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, GOVERNANCE AND

ETHICS

CIA – I

STUDY ON SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF:

DR. VAIBHAV TRIPATHI

Submitted by

Muskan Tomar (20221019)

Introduction

In business, sustainability refers to doing business without negatively impacting the

environment, community, or society as a whole. Sustainability in business generally
addresses two main categories: The effect business has on the environment. The effect
business has on society.

Godrej Consumer Products Limited

Sustainability is an integral part of Godrej Consumer Products’ business and value chain, and
it helps them to provide high-quality, affordable goods to the 1.1 billion people, globally,
who use their products on any given day. However, their stakeholders are not only limited to
their customers but also include their team members, the supply chain, society, the
government, and the environment.

They are committed to making environmental sustainability a key part of their manufacturing
processes. From sourcing of raw materials to the technologies that they use at their plants,
they are ensuring that their overall manufacturing approach is more future ready.

They are looking for ways to extend their sustainability efforts beyond their plants to impact
the entire life cycle of their products. At product level, they’ve started product level
monitoring of green parameters for 12 products and working on lifecycle assessments (LCA)
of their three of their products. Their teams are working on implementing the opportunities
identified in the LCA reports.

Their sustainability strategy supports the development of products that are environmentally
sustainable. As part of this strategy, they are developing products that consume fewer energy
resource (energy and water), emit fewer greenhouse gases (GHGs), and include 100 per cent
recyclable, renewable, and/or natural materials.

Over the years, they have aligned their sustainability efforts with national priorities and the
needs of their local communities to deliver high-impact programmes that are easy to scale up,
such as
1. Their skill-building initiatives are linked to the National Skill Development Mission. Their
flagship programme trains girls and women in the beauty and wellness industry.

2. They are associated with the Integrated Watershed Management Programme, under the
Ministry of Rural Development. Their large-scale integrated watershed project in drought-
prone regions helps restore the ecological balance by harnessing, conserving, and developing
degraded natural resources, thus promoting sustainable livelihoods in the region.

3. In line with the Swachh Bharat Mission, we are running several community waste
management projects across India with local municipalities. In addition, they run an intensive
community awareness and behaviour change programme to combat malaria with the
government’s National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme to help them in their goal
of malaria free India by 2030. They work in regions that report to have a high Annual
Parasitic Index (API) through their Elimination of Mosquito Borne Endemic Diseases
(EMBED) programme.

4. In FY 20-21, they expanded their scope to provide support for COVID-19 relief and
recovery efforts. They provided support to the public healthcare system, and government
efforts. They also contributed to the national efforts and provided product donations. They
supported the most vulnerable people in their ecosystem and enabled economic relief. They
are now supporting livelihoods recovery.

Furthermore, their community development initiatives in the areas surrounding their

manufacturing units are focussed on improving education, health and sanitation, and access to
water.

They also run, Brighter Giving – a structured volunteering platform through which their team
members can offer their time and skills to help address an NGO’s needs.

Through the Brighter Giving platform, Godrejites can volunteer their time, knowledge, and
skills to help address the specific needs of a non-profit organisation and/or their beneficiaries
on a project basis. Volunteering team members accomplish this by using their professional
skills and expertise to develop relevant, implementable, and sustainable solutions for the
organisations with which they work. It also serves as a channel through which their team
members can connect with and learn more about Good & Green. In FY 20-21, all their
volunteering efforts were focussed online and at home.
Issues

With a call to action by major nations and Governments alike to reduce the impact of
industries on the environment, they must run their operations in the most efficient manner
either by improving processes or by employing newer and cleaner technologies. The costs
associated with non-compliance and side-stepping local laws and regulations carry significant
monetary fines as well as reputational damage.

Dependence on natural resources is a long-term economic threat as well as a threat to the

environment considering their limited availability. There is an additional pressure to source
raw materials from suppliers who meet sustainable agriculture and environmental guidelines.
Water management is another similar issue that affects not only the rate of growth of
production, but also the local communities in which they operate.

Addressing environmental risk

They focus on energy and water conservation, GHG mitigation, waste minimisation, and use
of renewable energy to tackle climate change. They have a dedicated environmental
sustainability team, and they are dedicated to studying and identifying risks and opportunities
for their manufacturing facilities spread across the globe. After identifying risks and
opportunities, the team proposes necessary action to be taken. This has been working
successfully, and several measures proposed by the team have been implemented and yielded
excellent benefits.

Addressing natural resources challenges

As a part of their efforts to sustainably source natural resources, they strongly promote and
develop materials that are not energy and water intensive and opt for materials that emit
lesser GHGs. They are progressing towards looking at their value chain in a cyclical manner
by focusing on lifecycle costs and preferring 100 per cent recyclable and renewable
alternatives. They understand the problems caused by shortage of water and have invested in
an integrated watershed development project in the drought prone region of Siddepet district,
Telengana, India, to help restore the ecological balance of the region.
Initiatives and Commitments

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

1. Providing COVID-19 relief and recovery solutions to protect lives and livelihoods of over
200,000 people.

2. Economic inclusion by enhancing the employability and livelihoods of over 288,000

women in beauty industry since FY13.

SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

1. Project EMBED is creating awareness and since FY 16 is protecting 3.5 million people
from vector-borne diseases.

2. ‘Youth ki Awaz’ initative is driving behaviour change in water, health and sanitation in
communities around their flagship plant in Malanpur, India.

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

1. Focus on diversity, inclusion and women in leadership. Women now comprise of over 25
per cent of their workforce.

2. Empowering young beauticians.

SDG 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

1. Through their integrated watershed management initiative, they captured 3 million KL of

water in FY 2020-21 which is 3.5x of their water use at GCPL.

2. ‘Youth ki Awaz’ initative reached out to 1,123 households in 4 villages in FY 2020-21

around their flagship plant in Malanpur, India to drive behaviour change in water, health and
sanitation.

SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all

1. In FY 2020-21, 60 per cent of their employees upskilled online with a steady increase of 5-
10 per cent learners every quarter.

2. They priortised wellness and safety of all their employees. They also trained 83,395 people
(employees + contractor workers) on safety in FY 2020-21

SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

1. They are a water positive company, and send no waste to landfill.

2. They have evaluated suppliers accounting for 70 per cent of their procurement spends on
being sustainably committed.

3. By 2025, they will reduce packaging consumption per unit of production by 20 per cent,
have 100% of the packaging material be recyclable, reusable, recoverable, or compostable,
and use at least 10% postconsumer recycled (PCR) content in plastic packaging.

SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

1. Their green goals committment and performnace on reducing specific energy by 30%,
increasing renewables to 30%, zero waste to land, water positivity, and carbon neutrality.

2. Their waste mangement and watershed initiatives.

Stakeholder Engagement Process

The Stakeholder Engagement Process Collating the results from different business functions,
they have categorised the list of the most relevant stakeholders across those who needed to be
consulted, to be kept informed of the latest activities, to be kept informed/engaged on a
regular level, and to collaborate/empower. For each stakeholder group identified as critical to
GCPL’s business, they obtained the modes and frequency of engagement to gauge their level
of engagement with GCPL. They also conduct stakeholder engagement workshops to
understand their perceptions and obtain feedback regarding the performance of GCPL. They
engaged with those stakeholders who were selected based on the prioritisation performed by
various business functions considering their importance and feasibility of engagement.
Triple Bottom Line

ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

Sales grew by 9% to INR 4,748 crore

Net profit grew by 13% to INR 740 crore

Consistent growth for all brands

ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE

Specific energy consumption reduced by 31%

Specific GHG emission reduced by 27%

Specific waste sent to landfill reduced by 9%

Specific water consumption reduced by 21%

Share of renewable energy increased to 15.5%

SOCIAL PERFORMANCE

Gender diversity at above 13%

Trained over 130,000 youth in skills that will help enhance their earning potential

Signed WASH pledge of WBCSD in 2015

CONCLUSION
The Godrej Group has been a great proponent of corporate social responsibility for over 123
years. No different from the group, GCPL is committed to the ‘Good and Green’ vision of
creating an inclusive and greener world. Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) with
effective implementation of its CSR projects has earned it the top spot for CSR and
sustainability in India in 2021. Through its impactful initiatives, the company is paving the
path to creating a more inclusive, aware, developed and greener India.

Bibliography

https://godrejcp.com/sustainability

https://godrejcp.com/public/pdfs/SDG-Mapping-FY-2020-21.pdf

https://www.godrejcp.com/public/uploads/reports/2020-21/Integrated-
Reporting-2020-21.pdf

https://www.godrejcp.com/sustainability/our-strategy

https://www.godrejcp.com/public/uploads/reports/2020-21/
GCPL_BRR_FY_202021.pdf