Energy

At Sterlite, conservation of energy is given prime importance. The energy efficiency is considered as one of many criteria for decision making. It is because management’s mandate of energy efficiency, we have been able to achieve market competitiveness, and considered amongst the lowest cost producers in the world. Several measures have been taken in past to reduce our specific energy consumption. Our specific energy consumption for year 2007-08 was 9.51 GJ/MT of copper produced, almost 18% lower than 2005-06 levels i.e. 11.5GJ/MT of copper produced.

We have system of carrying our regular energy audit both internally and through external experts. This enables us to identify areas of improvement on regular basis and contributes in continual improvement.

Climate Change

Climate change is widely recognised as one of the greatest global sustainability challenges. Its implications are far-reaching for the environment, people, and for the global economy – of which Sterlite is a part. As a responsible company with strong commitment towards the betterment of environment, we would take all necessary and possible measure to reduce our GHG emissions. Last year we carried out Carbon inventorisation study for our operations. Table below provides our GHG emissions for both our Tuticorin and Silvassa operations. As it can be observed, current levels of CO2 emissions from the direct sources amount to 1.6 Tons of CO2 / Ton of Copper being produced.

Table: GHG emissions from Sterlite Industries (I) Limited

Our strategy to combat climate change mainly focuses on making our processes more energy efficient, and in turn converts some of the possible projects in to Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. As a part of strategy we have also formed a core CDM cell at plant, with 17 employees from different departments as CDM champions to facilitate identification of potential projects. In addition we have also developed a system to facilitate and incentivise more employee involvement in identifying various energy efficiency/potential CDM projects. The Project proposer will be rewarded with Rs. 1,000/- for any project accepted by CDM committee of the business. He then becomes the entrepreneur for the project. The entrepreneur will be awarded a sum of Rs 25,000/- as cash award once the project gets registered on the UNFCC site. On receipt of CERS i.e., completion of the project the entrepreneur will be finally awarded 2% of the annualized profit for a single year from the project subject to a minimum of Rs 1,00,000/-. Furthermore we have also developed E – Forum (Intranet) to register the Ideas / Suggestions about new CDM projects feasible in our Industry. It can be logged on to the existing ideas@sterlite followed by a link to CDM ideas.

The successful implementation of the strategy as already started to repay, in 2007-08, we have embarked upon six projects as activities under the Clean Development Mechanism. Out the 6 projects, 3 have reached at the validation stage. These projects are:

Water is the key resource in the manufacturing of copper, required primarily for cleaning purpose in number of operations. In our endeavor to promote sustainable development, we have maintained zero effluent discharge status, right from inception of our plant through reusing and recycling waste water within the facility. Our Smelter complexes have been provided with effluent treatment plants and sewage treatment plants for adequate treatment of the waste water prior to recycling and reuse, thus reducing our fresh water intake into our system. Also, due to well developed rain water catchment system and further utilization of rainwater has reduced our fresh water consumption. These efforts have helped us to maintain lower water consumption. We have able to reduce our specific water consumption by 5.65% to 8.34 M3/Tonne of copper produced from previous year. Figure below provide our overall water consumption (Both for Tuticorin and Silvassa) from last 3 years:

We have also developed a focused water strategy for our plant and have appointed a water manager to design and implement programmes for reducing specific water conservation. We also carryout periodical internal water audits both internally and external experts. An extensive water audit was conducted by CII in April-2007 and recommendations with potential of saving 3, 11,850 m3 (945 m3/day) was given. Most of these suggestions have been implemented or in process of implementation.

Our company focuses on the responsible identification of solid waste segregation, storage and disposal. Wastes ejected from processes are categorised as either hazardous or non-hazardous wastes depending upon the characteristics. The hazardous waste generated primarily includes ESP Dust, Spent Catalyst, ETP Cake, Scrubber Cake and Waste Oil. While, non-hazardous mainly includes lime grit, copper slag and gypsum. We have a fully developed secured landfill facility approved by the statutory body for safe storage of hazardous solid wastes.

We are constantly exploring the possibility or reducing the hazardous waste generation. Following two initiatives have been taken to reduce the hazardous cake generation:

Non-Hazardous waste

Both gypsum and copper slag are amongst the major non-hazardous waste generated during our operations. We have taken measures in past for improving the quality of gypsum and rendering useful for cement sector as a raw material. The figure given below indicates the trends in the sale of gypsum as a raw material to cement industry. This is clear case of industrial ecology; where in a by-product from our process is being utilized as raw material in other industrial sector, thus making it a pivotal step in direction of environmental sustainability.

The other non hazardous waste is copper slag, which is generated during the smelting operation. We are carried several technical studies from reputed institutions in India for exploration of its potential usage for other industrial application. The institutes like CRRI, NLM and NCCBM have been engaged to assess the properties of the slag for its usage in road construction, berth facility at port and performance improver in cement manufacturing respectively. The results so far have been positive so far and our company is pursuing it actively to make its usage commercially feasible.

Emissions

Controlling air emissions is a daunting challenge to all the smelters in the world Sulphur Dioxide and Flouride emissions are the most significant gaseous emissions, while Oxides of Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide are emitted in negligible proportions from our processes.
Several pollution abatement measures such as Double Hood Systems, Water Cooled Goosenecks and Collection Hoods at all secondary ports of furnaces for better gas capture, Gas Scrubbers, dry and wet ESP's, Gas Cleaning Sections for cleaning of SO2 emissions and Five Stage Gas Scrubbing Systems for Flouride emissions have been installed to ensure that emissions to the atmosphere can be minimised. Some other measures which have taken up last year to improve quality of ambient air and it’s monitoring are: