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Sixth sphere: conserving the Environment
Heavy Industry in India could not modernise through the 1970s and 1980s due to a regulated business environment. Tata Steel devised opportunities to introduce new processes, even effecting import substitutions, modernising, expanding and upgrading, so that it may fulfill its responsibility to its shareholders and equally importantly to Mother Nature. In the 1990s, when economic liberalisation unshackled the Company, it rapidly transformed its aging steel works into one of the most modern in the world, using state-of-the-art environmentally sound technology. The Company celebrated the new Millennium by planting over a million trees, much before climate change advocates called for the greening of the tropics.
Seventh sphere: the people of the world
It is only in this Millennium, that the world has truly awakened to corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The immense equity, created by Tata Steel through its principles and a century of sustainability through its responsible business practices, created a new sphere of accountability and another stakeholder group: the global community. A century-old crusader for sustainability, the Company was invited to become a founder Signatory of the UN Global Compact. It is a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporter and actively networks to propagate the need for businesses to focus on business practices that lead to universal good.
Inviting Accountability
In the early years, the Company actively interceded on behalf of the beneficiaries to take socio-economic change to their doorstep by playing the role of a “constructive” philanthropist, sharing its wealth by granting its partners the tools of change. In each case, once trust was established and capacity created within the community, the Company transformed its role into that of catalyst, then facilitator and now mentor, allowing the beneficiaries to take charge and gain empowerment.
In 1980, a decade after Tata Steel formally incorporated Social Responsibility
into its Articles of Association, the
Company initiated an independent Social
Audit to assess the |
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impact of its services on the lives of its partners. This was the first such initiative in Indian industry and among the pioneering efforts across the world. The 3rd Social Audit Report, for the period 1991 to 2001, was released in 2006.
Inclusive Growth in the future as well
Tata Steel’s commitment to all stakeholder groups is recognised as a benchmark well beyond India, in the leading forums of the world.
The Company’s top management has been invited to determine the course of social change across the world, through the United Nations Global Compact Forum, the Global Reporting Initiatives, Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS and the UN Global Compact Cities Pilot Project.
The Company continues to demonstrate its commitment to inclusive growth at all its greenfield locations across the world. It has set in motion plans that will protect their environment and assure displaced communities a better quality of life. As it grows and globalises and has the opportunity to touch lives in new nations and new geographies, the Company encourages the development of the local workforce, as well as focusses on those sections of the world citizenry still fighting oppressive poverty and social backwardness. It also works to further the principles of Ethics and Corporate Governance. In new locations, Tata Steel has committed itself to employment generation, enhancement of employability, livelihoods and creation of urban infrastructure, that will rival Jamshedpur.
The Company is today voluntarily accountable to every stakeholder group, from its earliest to the most recent, and has strong processes and practices in place to engage with them, to act upon their needs and to meet their aspirations. True to the Tata ethos it has been slow to draw attention to itself as its strength has always been in actions. |
