Environment

Ensuring Responsible Utilisation of
Natural Resources

At Hindustan Zinc, we are aware of the depletable nature of the resources we deploy and are committed to using them prudently, thereby reducing our environmental footprint. We strive to continuously raise our benchmark in sustainability performance and follow global standards.

SDGs ASSOCIATED

MATERIAL ISSUES ADDRESSED

HIGH-PRIORITY AREA

  • WATER MANAGEMENT
  • TAILING DAMS MANAGEMENT
  • AIR EMISSIONS
  • ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

MEDIUM-PRIORITY AREAS

  • SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
  • BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
  • NOISE AND VIBRATIONS MANAGEMENT

WATER STEWARDSHIP

We are demonstrating our commitment for water stewardship by using water efficiently, maintaining water quality and engaging with communities to collaboratively manage a shared water resource throughout the life cycle

SUSTAINABILITY GOAL 2025

Become a 5 times water-positive company and achieve 25% reduction in freshwater consumption.

We will contribute to positive water impact in the vicinity of our operations through various efforts to enable long-term, sustainable water security for our business and others who depend on water availability. Our focus areas include:

  • Increasing efficiency in water usage and exploring less water-intensive technologies
  • Using alternative water sources to reduce dependencies on freshwater
  • Replenish water within local watersheds and rainwater harvesting

Our Performance

Water Recycling

Specific Water Consumption

A Water-positive Enterprise

We operate in a water-scarce area of India and the non-availability of water is a key risk for our business. To mitigate this risk, we are reducing our dependence on freshwater by exploring alternative resources, increasing the recycle and reuse of water and replenishing as much water as we can. We are working towards long-term conservation and the availability of water to both nearby communities and across our operations.

During FY 2019-20, our water accounting assessment was carried out by DNV GL, a globally renowned risk management and quality assurance company, and we were certified a 2.41x water-positive company. Initiatives such as rainwater harvesting, recharge to groundwater and the use of treated sewage water have enabled us to achieve this distinction. This reinforces our commitment to the journey of water stewardship.

Our Approach

We have adopted a multi-pronged approach to managing water resources.

Focus Areas

Minimising the
Use of Water

Initiatives

  • Use a deep cane decanter, air-cooled condenser
  • Transition backfilling method from hydro fill to paste fill

Enhancing the Use of Recycled Water

  • Set up an integrated Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) at all smelters to ensure maximum recycling of process water and reusing the water back into the process
  • Upgraded our technology by installing multiple effective evaporator/Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) at all smelters to strengthen zero discharge and improve water recovery
  • Reuse the excess water from our tailing dam back to the process

Developing Rainwater Harvesting Systems to Replenish Groundwater Sources

  • Stormwater collection pond is constructed at all sites to collect rainwater runoff and is treated in our ETP for reuse
  • Promote rainwater harvesting in nearby communities

Focus Areas

Exploring
Alternatives

Initiatives

  • Commissioned a 20 mn litre per day (MLD) STP in 2014 to ensure Udaipur’s lake remained free of sewage inflow pollution
  • Signed agreement to build a second similar STP in June 2017, to increase the capacity by another 40 MLD
  • Commissioned an additional capacity of 25 MLD in 2019
  • Two further decentralised STPs, with a combined capacity of 15 MLD, are undergoing commissioning

Monitoring and
Auditing

  • Conducting an extensive audit of our water management systems every year under the Vedanta Sustainable Framework

DRY TAILINGS DISPOSAL SYSTEM – ZAWAR

Objective

To reduce the water content (50-65%) present in the tailings slurry at the beneficiation plants in Zawar

Action Taken

Installation and commissioning of dry tailing plant to:

  • Ensure higher water recovery
  • Eliminate water losses through seepage and evaporation
  • Virtually stop any probability of groundwater contamination through seepage
  • Improve safety significantly with the risk of catastrophic dam failure

Positive Outcomes

  • Recirculation of 90%+ of the process water
  • Elimination of the risks of catastrophic tailings dam failure
  • Safe stacking of tailings cakes even in areas of high seismic activity
  • Reduction of risk of groundwater contamination through seepage
  • Reduction of storage footprint by 50%
  • Enabling fast rehabilitation when approaching mine closure

It is now possible to extract excess water (recirculation for mill operation) from tailings by the introduction of this filtration plant to transform solid fractions into cake containing only 16% moisture.

ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE MANAGEMENT

We endeavour to use energy efficiently across all our sites and diversify our energy portfolio to cleaner sources where possible.

SUSTAINABILITY GOAL 2025

Achieve 0.5 mn tCO2e GHG emission savings in our operations from the base year 2017

We will continue our efforts to achieve an absolute reduction in GHG emissions across our operations. Our focus areas include:

  • Reducing fossil fuel-based energy use in our operations by using innovative energy efficiency technologies and process optimisation
  • Shifting to renewables and/or low-carbon solutions where possible

Our Performance

Optimising Energy Consumption

Climate Change

We believe renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important and are ramping up our green energy portfolio. We have a total wind capacity of 273.5 MW and total solar capacity of 39.6 MW. The green energy so generated has led to the reduction of CO2 emission by 5,80,995 MT annually. The expansion of WHRB capacity is planned to add 5.58 MW Steam Turbine Generator (STG) project at Dariba Lead Smelter and 8.6 MW in the fumer plant at Chanderiya.

USE OF PNG BURNERS BY REPLACING THE HSD BURNERS AT PANTNAGAR

Objective

Reduction in GHG emission using cleaner fuel

Action Taken

Pantnagar Metal Plant has successfully installed and is running the highly efficient Piped Natural Gas (PNG) burners by replacing the High Speed Diesel (HSD) burners, thereby reducing GHG emissions as well as enhancing net annual profit

Positive Outcomes

  • PNG is one of the cleanest burning fuels and helps improve the quality of air; 15% reduction in GHG emission
  • In case of leakage, natural gas being lighter than air, disperses in the air
  • Uninterrupted and adequate supply of PNG through pipe
  • Eliminating the need of storage space for the fuel
  • PNG is economical to LPG and any other liquid fuels
  • No spillage and pilferage

Adopting TCFD Recommendations

In 2015, Financial Stability Board created the Task force on Climate related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and in 2017, TCFD published its recommendations around four pillars of governance, strategy, risk management and climate-related metrics and targets.

We are conscious of the climate change and its impacts on our activities and have initiated the adoption of TCFD framework for climate change risk and opportunity management. We are in the process of conducting a detailed gap analysis against the four core elements of the TCFD framework. To kick-start and support the implementation, we organised an interactive session for our senior management to understand the requirement of the TCFD through renowned consultant and also conducted an awareness webinar for all our employees on climate change, TCFD guidelines and how they can contribute to the same.

We have established a three-tier structure for governing the risks and opportunities related to climate change

  • Tier-1: Vedanta Sustainability Committee and Vedanta Carbon Forum
  • Tier-2: Executive-level sustainability committee at Hindustan Zinc
  • Tier-3: Sustainability Task Force and Energy and Carbon Community

We have defined the transition to a circular economy as one of our strategic priorities, which will enable us in realising our vision and mission.

Environment and climate change risks and their mitigation actions are embedded in our critical business activities, functions and processes. We are also in the process of initiating the detailed climate change related risk and opportunity assessment.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Hindustan Zinc believes in zero waste and has aligned waste management practices to the '4R Policy’ of Reduce, Recycle, Reuse and Reclaim in our operations.

SUSTAINABILITY GOAL 2025

Achieve three times increase in gainful utilisation of smelting process waste.

Through efficient and responsible waste management, we will continue to make our efforts towards reducing waste to landfill. Our focus areas include:

  • Adopting technologies to reduce generation of waste
  • Expanding recycling and small-scale metal recovery projects
  • Gainfully utilising the waste in other industries

Focus Areas

Reduce Waste
Generation

Initiatives Adopted

  • Utilisation of waste rock and tailings in mine backfilling through state-of-the-art technology paste-fill and hydro-fill plants
  • Implementation of fumer technology will lead to 100% utilisation of the slag generated at the smelter in cement industries

Focus Areas

Reuse
Waste

Initiatives Adopted

  • 100% utilisation of fly ash, slag and Jarosite in manufacturing cement
  • Utilising jarofix and slag in road construction

Reclaim
Resources

  • Plantation over jarofix dump yards
  • Dry tailing plant will reclaim water used in the milling process

Recycle

  • Recycling of smelting residues to recover metals
  • Recycling of zinc dross in the smelting process

MANAGING EMISSIONS

Our approach to managing emissions is focused on investing in environmental abatement technologies such as air emission control equipment, maintaining process integrity and active engagement with key stakeholders.

We have deployed equipment across our value chain that use cleaner fuel. Our technologically advanced state-of-the-art underground traffic management systems are driving faster turnaround time of mining equipment, lowering engine hours and improving fuel efficiencies.

Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) has been installed at all source emissions and data is being sent to a central server and to servers of statutory bodies like the State and Central Pollution Control Boards. Immediate corrective and preventive actions are taken in case of any deviation.

BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Protecting and enhancing biodiversity is integral to our commitment towards sustainable development. We have developed a unique and exclusive biodiversity management plan for all our operations. We are a member of the IUCN Leader for Nature (LfN) India initiative and are committed to enhancing and restoring biodiversity. We are working closely with the LfN team to organise different awareness-raising training programmes for our employees.

SUSTAINABILITY GOAL 2025

Protect and enhance biodiversity throughout the life cycle.

Our focus areas include:

  • Creating awareness about biodiversity among employees and nearby communities
  • Biodiversity assessment, implementing biodiversity protection and conservation initiatives across the locations