The GreenCo Rating System by CII Godrej GBC helps a company achieve its objectives of charping its environmental performance, understanding various aspects of environmental sustainability and in framing a long term roadmap on how to be greener.

The GreenCo Rating System, the first of its kind in the world, provides a much needed holistic framework to evaluate industries on their environmental performance on these parameters. CII, through an extensive stakeholder consultation and interaction with experts, have developed the guidelines of GreenCo. This rating will act as a milestone for companies pursufing green to assess where they stand and help them in defining the path forward, says KS Venkatagiri, Principal Councellor, CII-Godrej GBC.

Vasavadatta Cement, Sedam has recently been awarded GreenCo Gold by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2012-15. It is the first cement plant to be certified under GreenCo, Green Company Rating System. Under the leadership of CK Jain, Unit Head, Vasavadatta Cement, Sedam has been able to achieve GreenCo Gold due to tremendous amounts of hard work taken by the plant for years together on various aspects of sustainability. "The Green Company Rating System has helped us in effectively communicating to our stake holders about our commitment to sustainable growth, to reduce consumption of natural resources without jeopardising growth of the company, says CK Jain, Unit Head, Vasavadatta Cement, Sedam. According to him one of the most important reasons behind applying for the rating system was to understand our environmental performance on various aspects of environmental sustainability.

This includes areas such as energy efficiency, water conservation, greenhouse gas emission, waste management, material conservation, recycling and recyclability, green supply chain, product stewardship, life cycle analysis, other areas like ventilation, biodiversity preservation, innovation, etc. Jain further adds, "GreenCo gives energy efficiency 20 per cent weightage. Energy costs also account for approximately 45 per cent of our expenditure. The system emphasises the need to have an energy policy, formation of cross- functional energy management cell, energy metering and monitoring systems, setting internal, national and international benchmarks and equipment wise efficiency monitoring. All these initiatives have a direct impact on the energy consumption of the plant as well as energy costs. The rating system has helped us in achieving our objectives of understanding our environmental performance on various aspects of environmental sustainability and in framing a long term roadmap on how to be greener."Another major cement company that has bagged the GreenCo Certification is ACC, Thondebhavi Cement Works which has been rated GreenCo Silver.

According to Venkatagiri, CII is looking at a hundred registered companies by the end of 2013. He says, " We are already working with over 60 companies and are positive that by the end of the year we will have a hundred GreenCo registered projects. Once the business case is fully demonstrated, GreenCo will propel on its own and deliver significant value to the companies."As per ICR inputs more cement companies are looking the GreenCo way, too. Says Sandeep Shrivastava, Head, Environment, Ambuja Cement, "We are already the proud recipient of the CII Sustainability Award for 2010-11 and 2011-12. GreenCo rating, we are targeting in the next cycle of rating."According to BK Singh, Senior Executive Director-Group Marketing and Corporate Communication, Dalmia Bharat, the company is actively considering for opting GreenCo rating. "We are in the process of obtaining GreenC rating for our Cement Unit ûII,"says Dr GVK Prasad, Executive President-Operations, KCP. "Reliance Cement will opt for the GreenCo rating after stabilisation of its Maihar plant,"says Sumit Banerjee, Vice-Chairman, Reliance Cement.