At the summit (from L-R), Dr Jacques Perez, MD, Lanxess India; Rudiger Eberhard, CPO, Evonik & president of TfS; Ajay Durrani, president, Covestro India; Deepak Parikh, CEO, Clariant India; Richard van der Merwe, CEO, Bayer CropScience India; and Dr Raman Ramachandran, chairman, BASF India.
MUMBAI, INDIA: Industry stalwarts from 19 companies of the Indian chemical industry, today came together for the Together for Sustainability (TfS) summit in Mumbai. Organized at the Grand Hyatt, the summit built awareness around the importance of creating a sustainable supply chain in the chemical Industry, and saw participation from over 500 representatives from suppliers and TfS member companies as well as local and international associations, international audit companies and experts. The attendees pledged their commitment towards creating sustainable supply chains in the chemical industry.
The event featured presentations from key executives of participating companies as well as industry bodies like Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Indian Chemical Council (ICC). Senior leaders also came together for a media panel discussion around the theme of “Charting a sustainable ecosystem in the Indian chemical industry.” The attending panelists agreed on the critical need of developing and implementing the global audit program to assess and improve sustainability practices within the chemical industry in India.
TfS’ formal launch in India comes at a time when the Indian Chemical industry is rated 6th in the World and 3rd in Asia in value added terms at constant prices. India is at the cusp of becoming the manufacturing hub for the world with government support and initiatives like Make in India. Business activities of all organizations are thus becoming more global and supply chains more complex. Considering the important role played by chemical industry across sectors including automobile, pharmaceuticals, textiles and even manufacturing, aligning with sustainability will help the sector to drive innovation as well as their growth engine. It is here that the TfS initiative leads by example in corporate responsibility through creating benchmarks for sustainable supply chains.
Since its initiation, the sustainability performance of 4,600 suppliers has been rated within the TfS initiative based on EcoVadis assessments and 446 TfS audits have been conducted globally. The initiative plans to establish benchmarks in the supply chain that can cover all the pillars of sustainability and grant relevant long-term gains both - to the companies and to their suppliers. In 2015, a total of 2,580 sustainability assessments have been shared among TfS Members and 179 new TfS audit reports were received by the TfS initiative. In India, 300 suppliers have been assessed through EcoVadis and audits at 28 sites have been concluded already.
TfS has grown its membership thrice in the last five years and has commitment from 19 leading chemical companies including AkzoNobel, Arkema, BASF, Bayer, Brenntag, Clariant, Covestro, DuPont, DSM, Eastman, Evonik, IFF, Henkel, Lanxess, Merck, Sanofi, Solvay, Syngenta and Wacker. The initiative builds on established principles – such as the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the Responsible Care Global Charter as well as standards developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Social Accountability International (SAI) and others.
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