Tamil Nadu   

Tata Steel wins award for environmental protection

— Photo : M. Vedhan

IN RECOGNITION: P.C. Alexander, former Governor of Maharashtra, presenting the Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Award for Environmental Protection to B. Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel, at a function in Chennai on Tuesday. (From right) M.S. Swaminathan, chairman, MSSRF, and Kumar Asirvatham, president, Rotary Club of Madras East, are in the picture.

CHENNAI: Indian corporates need to be held accountable to society, rather than their shareholders alone, in order to improve their environmental and societal bottom lines, according to B. Muthuraman, managing director of Tata Steel.

Accepting the 10th Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Award for Environmental Protection, annually presented by the Rotary Club of Madras East and CavinKare, in Chennai on Tuesday, Mr. Muthuraman said that Tata Steel had been pursuing a “triple bottom line” philosophy — financial, environmental and societal — for a century before the term became a buzzword. However, widespread behavioural change in the corporate world needed methods to measure the holistic success of companies, he said. “If you measure companies on financial indicators alone, that is what companies will chase... If they were to be truly measured in terms of returns to society, including their financial returns to shareholders, but also in environmental and social terms, then they will chase that,” he said.

Tata Steel was honoured for its achievements in resource conservation, including a reduction in green house gases, raw materials and water consumption, and increased recycling and reuse of waste.The company does not use any groundwater source for industrial or domestic purposes and has managed to reduce the amount of water needed to produce each tonne of steel.

Agricultural scientist M.S Swaminathan, in whose name the award has been instituted, congratulated the company for carrying on the traditions laid down by Jamshedji Tata over a century ago, when he gave directions for Jamshedpur to be planned in an eco-friendly manner with a multitude of trees and open spaces.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Welcome gestures of cement industries
Establishing bonds
Opposition parties asked not to ridicule ‘people-oriented’ policies
Youth assaulted and robbed
New rice scheme launched
“More than a poll promise”
Ponmudy inaugurates rice scheme
Youth robbed
For the benefit of all
Highway robbery: woman from Madurai nabbed
Knitters drop indefinite strike plan ‘for now’
Four integrated M. Tech. courses launched
Admission cards for private candidates today
Government ready to bear any burden for the sake of poor: Minister
Doctors from Coimbatore bag awards
Commercialisation of road medians opposed
Collector distributes welfare assistance
Police step up enforcement drive
South Indian Bank to add more branches
Programme for wet grinder manufacturers
Book on scholar Thooran to be released
Workshop on employment for people with visual impairment
Plan to install sign boards along railway line
SIHMA to conduct seminar tomorrow
India committed to using space technology for development: VC
Seminar on emu farming
Heli-tourism by January next
Minister case: witness examination begins
Correction
All smiles
Detained under Goondas Act
Pilot project to implement GIS in State soon
Tata Steel wins award for environmental protection
APP held on graft charge
Postage stamps to be released
CPI leader murdered in Nagapattinam
Call for referendum on Tamil Eelam
Release of convicts not new, says Karunanidhi
Commemorative coin on Annadurai
Held for illegally carrying US dollars
Four buses damaged in stone-throwing
Navy personnel drowns
TMMK’s political outfit to be launched in December
Life term for 16 in triple murder case
Temple management and residents at loggerheads in Srirangam

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu