Environment

Climate Change aspect is an integral part of “Sustainable Development” which is a key part of Vedanta’s business philosophy and overall ethos.

  • Vedanta appreciates and acknowledges the global concern on climate change.
  • Even though most of our operations are in India and Zambia which are both Non-annexe 1 countries as per the Kyoto protocol of UNFCCC and therefore not committed to Kyoto reduction targets or any regulatory risks.
  • The Vedanta Board level HSE committee chaired by a senior independent non-executive Director, which meets quarterly also reviews our plan and performance with respect to "Climate Change"
  • Vedanta and its subsidiaries have been participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

Organisation

  • Being a mining and metals company, our operations are power intensive, and accordingly we have greater focus on "Energy Management" – Generation, specific consumption and waste heat / energy management.
  • We have captive thermal power plants at our Indian operations. Our dedicated teams ensure that their operations are at designed levels – The specific fuel consumption and load factor of these plants is better than the grid plants. Captive power generation also enables us to eliminate the transmission loss which would have been to the tune of 5% had the power been purchased from neighboring grids.
  • We are focused on reducing specific energy consumption by adopting better technology and continuous improvement. This has enabled in reduction in specific energy consumption year on year.

Green Energy

  • We ventured in the wind power generation space in early 2007. Our first 38 MW Wind Power Project (WPP) was commissioned during March ’07; we have steadily added on this and currently have 123.2 MW of WPP operating at designed levels.

Projects registered on UNFCCC as CDM (Clean Development Mechanism)

  • Five of our projects are already registered with the UNFCCC as CDM projects. These include
    • Waste heat recovery based power generation of 9.4 MW at HZL (Chanderiya smelter) potential to generate 51609 CERs per annum
    • Waste heat recovery based power generation project of 30 MW at Sesa Goa; potential to generate 112,357 CERs per annum
    • Wind power project of 88 MW in Gujarat by HZL; potential to generate 159,067 CERs per annum
    • Wind power project of 34 MW in Karnataka by HZL; potential to generate 70,778 CERs per annum
    • Waste heat recovery based power generation project of 11.2 MW at SIIL; potential to generate 18,000 CERs per annum

Carbon Foot-print

Our total GHG footprint for the year 2009-10 under direct emissions was 21.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent and 4.16 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent under indirect emissions.