Fashioning
Possibilities

Sustainability

"Arvind is an organization that is built on the bedrock of responsible stewardship. Even as we have expanded our businesses, entered new product and service areas and adopted the new-age technology, this core principle remains our guiding beacon in our vision of ‘Fashioning Possibilities’".

At Arvind, ‘Fundamentally Right’ has always been our credo. We understand that modern businesses must embody responsibility and purpose beyond just financial gains. This understanding is the cornerstone of our corporate philosophy. ESG is not just a buzzword but a guiding ethos that informs our every decision and action. It underscores our commitment to balance profit with purpose and to be a force for positive change.

We consistently take up initiatives that are positively influencing people's lives and making a difference to planet's health. We are committed to operating in a sustainable and responsible manner, and we believe that ESG factors are central to this commitment. We are also aware that our stakeholders are increasingly interested in ESG performance, and we want to be transparent about it.

In order to communicate transparently to our stakeholder on material issues we reanalysed and validated our materiality assessment by incorporating the concept of Double Materiality.

Materiality Assessment

Materiality is the compass by which we navigate our journey towards sustainability. It serves as the convergence point for the concerns and insights of both internal and external stakeholders. As the world is moving towards Double Materiality, we recognise its vital importance in today's rapidly changing world. The concept of Double Materiality focuses on the impact driven by the organisation on the environment and society and the impact driven by the environment and society on the organisations.

In FY 2022-23, we performed a double materiality assessment to gain insights into our impact on the external environment and its ESG risks and opportunities. The following steps were performed:

After consolidating the results from the assessment, the following key material issues were identified:

  1. 1. Energy
  2. 2. Fibre
  3. 3. Chemicals
  4. 4. People
  5. 5. Money
  6. 6. Policies, Standard and Code of Conduct
  7. 7. Customer Satisfaction
  8. 8. Regulatory and Legal Challenges
  9. 9. Waste
  10. 10. Water

The issues identified represent the very heart of our commitment to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles. It's here that we connect the dots between our operations, value chain, products, services, and their profound impact on society and the environment. For more details on the materiality assessment refer to our Materiality Assessment Report

To learn more about our ESG initiatives and performance, please click on the links below:

Independent Assurance

We engaged Intertek India Private Limited, a third-party organisation to provide independent assurance of our Materiality Assessment, Environmental KPI’s and Social KPI’s. Intertek has provided assurance in accordance with ISAE 3000 – limited assurance. Read the assurance statement with Intertek's independent opinion.



Chairman's Message

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Dear Stakeholder,

Climate change has fast emerged as the most fundamental challenge that the textile industry is facing today, which involves environmental protection, economic and social development. Contributing to sustainable development is the only way we can counter rising temperatures, limited freshwater, and changing weather patterns. These changes have a direct impact on the production of natural fibres such as cotton, which is the mainstay of the textile industry.

We understand that we cannot fight this alone and collaboration is the best way forward. At Arvind, we have two-pronged approach to deal with it. Being fundamentally right ourselves, as an organisation, in the issues which are material to our stakeholders and collaborating with our allies to amplify our efforts.

Between 2012-2014, we took rapid strides to make our operations more sustainable. In the next two years, we cascaded sustainability into the organisation by putting our intent into wide-scale action through fundamentally right philosophy. In the last three years, sustainability has become our business strategy; the period from 2016-2019 marks our collaboration initiatives that contribute to the global sustainable development goals.

We continue to push our boundaries with our allies across all our six key inputs - Cotton, People, Money, Energy, Water and Chemicals. Arvind Ltd. along with Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) led the implementation of the Better Cotton Standard, laying the foundation for more sustainable cotton production in the country in 2010-11.

Today, the area under cultivation of BCI has increased by leaps and bounds. From 14,750 acre in FY 2014-15 to 112,756 acre in FY 2018-19, 6.64 times increase. The number of BCI farmers also increased by over 6 times from 3,395 to 26,289 in the corresponding period. Through BCI and organic cotton, we are also ensuring zero child labour in cotton fields and the promotion of sustainable cotton farming.

Conservation and rejuvenation of water, our natural ally is part of Arvind's fundamentally right philosophy. Despite the increase in our production, our overall freshwater consumption reduced by 36% compared to FY 2014-15. We are setting up an innovation centre and a water treatment facility to eliminate the use of freshwater in making denim with our ally Gap Inc. Partnering with Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation and using their treated domestic sewage in our operations is yet another way of reducing freshwater use.

For the textile industry, wastewater is a major challenge. With Levi's and the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) programme, we are eliminating hazardous chemicals from the value chain. This has helped us in eliminating harmful chemicals from our processes, reduce chemical consumption, substitute hazardous with greener chemicals, and recover salts from wastewater to keep the environment clean.

Energy is as significant a material issue like water. We are optimising energy productivity and adding renewables to the energy mix to conserve this resource. Through our efforts, in the last five years, we have been able to cut down our total direct and indirect emission by around 15%. Our Ethiopia operations are fully powered by renewable energy. Our ally Cleantech Solar has helped us install 16.2-MW rooftop solar at our Santej facility in Gujarat, which is India's largest rooftop solar installation at a single location.

We are also working with farmers to use residues of cotton crop in boilers instead of coal to generate steam from Biomass. This programme will be scaled up further in the coming years.

We are in sync with our key allies - people. Arvind continues to invest in empowering employees and the neighbouring communities and they, in turn, add value to the company. For employees, we have been designing and implementing comprehensive employee engagement and development programmes. In the reporting period, we provided 35,066 man-days of training to our employees. Safety of our employees is a top priority.

We work in collaboration with various governments to empower people from neighbouring communities. Arvind Ltd. is the Project Implementation Agency under the Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) of Ministry of Textiles, Government of India.

Money is a thread that binds all our operations and sustainability efforts. Fiscal prudence and sound financial management coupled with the philosophy of giving back more than we take from the society have been our credo.

We continue to generate economic value so that we can distribute it for the prosperity of the planet and people. This three-year report is a detailed account of our triple bottom line performance with a substantial contribution of our allies and other stakeholders. I hope that together with our allies we will be able to contribute to making a more responsible industry and making this planet a better place to live.

Regards,

Sanjay S. Lalbhai

Chairman & Managing Director