Vedanta Resources Plc hosts second Annual Sustainable Development Day

Vedanta Resources Plc ("Vedanta", together with its subsidiaries) hosted a Sustainable Development Day in London on 24 June 2016. This was the second time that the annual event has been held. Analysts, investors and members of key industry bodies attended the event to share an update on the company's sustainable development activities.

At the meeting, Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta Resources Plc, commented in his opening remarks: "Sustainable development is at the heart of our business and I continue to ensure it is a priority for the company and its subsidiaries. We have made substantial progress on our sustainability journey, thanks to the efforts of our management team and everyone who works at Vedanta, and I am committed to the goal of zero harm, zero discharge and zero waste."

Anil Agarwal also spoke about his personal commitment to sustainable development and described some of the company's recent initiatives in this area.

Tom Albanese, Chief Executive Officer, spoke about the company's approach to sustainability risks embedded within the overall business, key focus areas and actions to mitigate risk. Phillip Turner, Group Head of Health, Safety and Environment, described the group's perspective and initiatives underway to develop a culture of safety at Vedanta. Vedanta is committed to reducing its environmental footprint, with a focus on land, water and waste management in the short term and carbon, energy and biodiversity in the long term.

Roma Balwani, President, Group Sustainability, CSR and Communications, shared an update on ensuring Vedanta's social license to operate. Vedanta is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UK Modern Slavery Act and is rolling out a uniform framework for their implementation, she updated.

Euan Macdonald, Non-Executive Director and Chairman of Vedanta's Sustainability Committee, spoke about Vedanta initiatives aimed at achieving its goal of "Zero Harm". Katya Zotova, Non-Executive Director and member of the Sustainability Committee, explained that safety and stakeholder engagement would be priorities for the Committee going forward.

Ahead of the event, Vedanta had sought views from participants on the sustainable development issues they were most interested in hearing about. Following the presentations, Vedanta management in London, Delhi and Johannesburg provided an update on the company's overall approach and specific areas of interest such as climate change, environmental management, safety, fatality prevention, community relations and human rights.

Vedanta hosted its first Sustainable Development Day in London on 1 July 2015, when the company's 2014-2015 Sustainability Report was unveiled. Since then, Vedanta has implemented behaviour-based and technical programmes regarding safety standards, job risk assessment and training workshops, among other initiatives. The company has made significant progress in resource management, site closure practices at Lisheen and diversity, and was named one of the top ten most sustainable companies in India with the CII Sustainable Plus Label.

In the last year, Vedanta has joined forces with India's Ministry of Women and Child Development to modernize Anganwadis (child care centres) through Project NandGhar. Vedanta's business units are also involved in social impact projects across the nation.