Champion 10 factors that helped it make the gradeThere is a reason for putting Shree Cement on the cover in this issue. For an industry much maligned for its environmental impact, it is always welcome when members of this sector are honoured for their ability to practice innovative business solutions with sustainable development activities. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) by identifying and honouring Shree Cement as one of the 16 new Sustainability Champion Companies, has ensured that the sector will work even more zealously to earn more laurels for the sector.World Economic Forum (WEF) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have worked globally to identify New Sustainability Champion Companies that practice innovative business solutions with sustainable development objectives. As an initial part of this identification process, over 11 million projects / companies were screened. Following which, a few companies were further selected through a due diligence process, taking into consideration the sustainability aspect inculcated by them in their business. The top management personnel from around 200 of these short-listed companies were then engaged in a personal interview. They were interviewed on various related fields, considering their approach and work towards sustainability, innovation, scalability, geography and size. Based upon a detailed interview of Prashant Bangur, Executive Joint President of Shree Cement Limited (SCL), WEF identified SCL as one amongst 16 New World Sustainability Champions.Driving sustainabilityShree Cement inculcates sustainability in its business frame work based on the philosophy ‘Aah NA Bhadra: Kratavo Yantu Vishwatah’ (Let noble thought come to us from all over the world). The company’s sustainability policy aims to produce quality cement in in a socially responsible manner, with an eco-friendly, healthy and safe working environment approach, working toward continual improvement in the performance level."Our continual thirst to become steward in all spheres has led us to this reputed platform where we stand today," says Prashant Bangur, Executive Joint President of Shree Cement.The company has a 10-fold approach to ensure sustainability in all operations:Creativity and innovationShree Cement encourages its employees to think ‘Out of Box’, its "Jo Soche Wo Pave" scheme encouraged employees to provide innovative ideas and suggestions which are rewarded and communicated to spread the culture of innovative thinking."We believe that success comes through failure. Allowing failures encourage creative thinking and develop the attitude of creativity, risk taking and ultimately high performance," says Prashant Bangur.Employee creative ideas and innovations:

• Developed synthetic gypsum to replace mineral gypsum for the first time in India.
• Set a world record of commissioning a brown field clinkerization unit in a record time of 330 days.
• Set a world record of commissioning a 46 MW of Waste Heat Recovery Based Green Power Plant in 17 months against the industry standard of 24 months.
• Air lifted coal and raw mill from Germany to reduce the project execution time.
• Installed the second largest waste heat recovery system in the world.

Resource and Energy ConservationA holistic view of Sustainability and care for the future generation through:

• Conserving resources to ensure its availability for the future generation
• Reducing emissions, cleaning environment and combating climate change

As an attempt to conserve fossil fuel, Shree Cement pioneered the use of petcoke as a replacement of fossil coal for the first time in India. Pet-coke has the properties of high sulphur, low volatile matter and harder grinding. Use of pet-coke came along with lots of constraints such as kiln jamming, low production and product quality but it also came as an opportunity to save precious fossil fuels. The company carried out extensive R&D and succeeded in pioneering its 100 per cent usage both in cement and power.Another initiative was to install India’s largest Air Cooled Condenser in its 2 X 150 MW power plant to replace the conventional water-cooled condensers, that ensured a current savings of 1 million KL water every year.One of the first process and cement manufacturing company in the world to obtain BS-EN 16001 Energy Management Certification, Shree Cement maintains one of lowest specific energy consumption for manufacturing its products.Environment FriendlinessThe company follows the philosophy of a Low Carbon Economy and work while following the maxim of clean and green is profitable. "They are members of various climate change initiatives like Cement Sustainability Initiative under the auspices of World Business Council of Sustainable Development (WBCSD)- Switzerland, GRI, TERI-BCSD etc.Waste UtilizationShree Cement began optimal use of fly ash in the cement manufacturing process in order to address the issues of fly ash disposal of power plants, while providing affordable cement to consumers and making planet better place. Use in cement makes the fly ash value added product thereby conserving limestone and fuels. The practice of using fly ash upto 35 per cent (which is maximum limit allowed by law), resulted in Shree Cement becoming the first cement manufacturing company in India to obtain CDM benefits for the same beginning July 2000.Similarly, the disposal of lead zinc slag was a serious problem for the zinc smelters. "However, our zeal to be opportunistic manufacturer provided us the threshold to utilise lead zinc slag, a waste of other industry thereby making us capable for laterite replacement from our operation. It also marked our "industrial ecologist" instinct. Besides, we have also demonstrated the use of agro-waste as a fuel replacement which is under validation for obtaining CDM benefits," says Prashant Bangur.The policy of Zero Disposals on LandMaintaining the lowest cost of production through:

• Continual benchmarking with best achievements within Shree Cement and outside
• Culture of challenging the established norms to find scope for further improvement
• Focus on use of alternate raw material and fuels.

Empowering PeopleThe company empowers people by providing them with challenging roles, higher responsibilities, multi-skill jobs, faster career growth and healthy working practices; and encourage the youth.Engaging Local CommunityThe company promotes maximum employment from local community, in order to generate sustainable livelihood by assisting local community to engage in various livelihood creation activities. To ensure total prosperity in the community, it actively engages in initiatives focusing on infrastructure and water harvesting structure development, healthcare and women empowerment programs, educational awareness programs and plantation activities.Embracing New Technology"Our continuous focus is on technologies for enabling faster decisions through increasing speed and accuracy and releasing time which can be put to other productive uses," says Bangur. It is one of the first cement companies to implement ‘Operator Independent Truck Dispatch System’ at mines for automated truck dispatch. It also introduced remote surveillance system to track progress of projects on real time basis from office.Health and SafetyThe company’s facilities are certified to the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard. Committed to achieving its goal of becoming ‘Zero Accident Work Place’, Personal Protective Equipment is provided to all workers on the shop floor and their use is strictly enforced.Transparency and GovernanceThe company maintains an open door policy of inviting competitors and outsiders to visit its plants to interchange ideas. "We have highly analytical annual report covering detailed financial and non financial information. We are the first cement company to issue Corporate Sustainability Report based upon GRI guidelines," says Prashant Bangur.Successful implementation of some of the projects at SCL:-Thermal power plants have traditionally used Water Cooled Condenser (WCC) systems. Bearing in mind the location of our operations in one of India’s most water scarce regions, we operationalized the switch from a Water Cooled Condenser to Air Cooled Condenser system. Retrofitting of the old system to convert it to ACC was a challenging task requiring considerable skill; the retrofitting task was completed and the ACC was commissioned without any alignment problems.Implementation of air cooled condensers at its power plant in Beawar has enabled reduced water consumption by about 70 per cent.Waste heat utilization of Preheater & clinker coolerTwo major sources of heat rejection In a cement plant are pre-heater and clinker cooler hot gases. Waste heat recovery system installation in these two sources not only generates electricity also saves water for cooling down the gases. "Our earlier experience with the waste heat boiler in unit-I gave a strong background for installation of waste heat recovery system in other units with improved systems to generate electricity as well as to save the water used to cool down the gases," says Bangur. This has reduced water consumption by about 85 per cent in the power plant and 50 per cent in clinker production.

Champion 10 factors that helped it make the gradeThere is a reason for putting Shree Cement on the cover in this issue. For an industry much maligned for its environmental impact, it is always welcome when members of this sector are honoured for their ability to practice innovative business solutions with sustainable development activities. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) by identifying and honouring Shree Cement as one of the 16 new Sustainability Champion Companies, has ensured that the sector will work even more zealously to earn more laurels for the sector.World Economic Forum (WEF) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have worked globally to identify New Sustainability Champion Companies that practice innovative business solutions with sustainable development objectives. As an initial part of this identification process, over 11 million projects / companies were screened. Following which, a few companies were further selected through a due diligence process, taking into consideration the sustainability aspect inculcated by them in their business. The top management personnel from around 200 of these short-listed companies were then engaged in a personal interview. They were interviewed on various related fields, considering their approach and work towards sustainability, innovation, scalability, geography and size. Based upon a detailed interview of Prashant Bangur, Executive Joint President of Shree Cement Limited (SCL), WEF identified SCL as one amongst 16 New World Sustainability Champions.Driving sustainabilityShree Cement inculcates sustainability in its business frame work based on the philosophy ‘Aah NA Bhadra: Kratavo Yantu Vishwatah’ (Let noble thought come to us from all over the world). The company’s sustainability policy aims to produce quality cement in in a socially responsible manner, with an eco-friendly, healthy and safe working environment approach, working toward continual improvement in the performance level."Our continual thirst to become steward in all spheres has led us to this reputed platform where we stand today," says Prashant Bangur, Executive Joint President of Shree Cement.The company has a 10-fold approach to ensure sustainability in all operations:Creativity and innovationShree Cement encourages its employees to think ‘Out of Box’, its "Jo Soche Wo Pave" scheme encouraged employees to provide innovative ideas and suggestions which are rewarded and communicated to spread the culture of innovative thinking."We believe that success comes through failure. Allowing failures encourage creative thinking and develop the attitude of creativity, risk taking and ultimately high performance," says Prashant Bangur.Employee creative ideas and innovations:

• Developed synthetic gypsum to replace mineral gypsum for the first time in India.
• Set a world record of commissioning a brown field clinkerization unit in a record time of 330 days.
• Set a world record of commissioning a 46 MW of Waste Heat Recovery Based Green Power Plant in 17 months against the industry standard of 24 months.
• Air lifted coal and raw mill from Germany to reduce the project execution time.
• Installed the second largest waste heat recovery system in the world.

Resource and Energy ConservationA holistic view of Sustainability and care for the future generation through:

• Conserving resources to ensure its availability for the future generation
• Reducing emissions, cleaning environment and combating climate change

As an attempt to conserve fossil fuel, Shree Cement pioneered the use of petcoke as a replacement of fossil coal for the first time in India. Pet-coke has the properties of high sulphur, low volatile matter and harder grinding. Use of pet-coke came along with lots of constraints such as kiln jamming, low production and product quality but it also came as an opportunity to save precious fossil fuels. The company carried out extensive R&D and succeeded in pioneering its 100 per cent usage both in cement and power.Another initiative was to install India’s largest Air Cooled Condenser in its 2 X 150 MW power plant to replace the conventional water-cooled condensers, that ensured a current savings of 1 million KL water every year.One of the first process and cement manufacturing company in the world to obtain BS-EN 16001 Energy Management Certification, Shree Cement maintains one of lowest specific energy consumption for manufacturing its products.Environment FriendlinessThe company follows the philosophy of a Low Carbon Economy and work while following the maxim of clean and green is profitable. "They are members of various climate change initiatives like Cement Sustainability Initiative under the auspices of World Business Council of Sustainable Development (WBCSD)- Switzerland, GRI, TERI-BCSD etc.Waste UtilizationShree Cement began optimal use of fly ash in the cement manufacturing process in order to address the issues of fly ash disposal of power plants, while providing affordable cement to consumers and making planet better place. Use in cement makes the fly ash value added product thereby conserving limestone and fuels. The practice of using fly ash upto 35 per cent (which is maximum limit allowed by law), resulted in Shree Cement becoming the first cement manufacturing company in India to obtain CDM benefits for the same beginning July 2000.Similarly, the disposal of lead zinc slag was a serious problem for the zinc smelters. "However, our zeal to be opportunistic manufacturer provided us the threshold to utilise lead zinc slag, a waste of other industry thereby making us capable for laterite replacement from our operation. It also marked our "industrial ecologist" instinct. Besides, we have also demonstrated the use of agro-waste as a fuel replacement which is under validation for obtaining CDM benefits," says Prashant Bangur.The policy of Zero Disposals on LandMaintaining the lowest cost of production through:

• Continual benchmarking with best achievements within Shree Cement and outside
• Culture of challenging the established norms to find scope for further improvement
• Focus on use of alternate raw material and fuels.

Empowering PeopleThe company empowers people by providing them with challenging roles, higher responsibilities, multi-skill jobs, faster career growth and healthy working practices; and encourage the youth.Engaging Local CommunityThe company promotes maximum employment from local community, in order to generate sustainable livelihood by assisting local community to engage in various livelihood creation activities. To ensure total prosperity in the community, it actively engages in initiatives focusing on infrastructure and water harvesting structure development, healthcare and women empowerment programs, educational awareness programs and plantation activities.Embracing New Technology"Our continuous focus is on technologies for enabling faster decisions through increasing speed and accuracy and releasing time which can be put to other productive uses," says Bangur. It is one of the first cement companies to implement ‘Operator Independent Truck Dispatch System’ at mines for automated truck dispatch. It also introduced remote surveillance system to track progress of projects on real time basis from office.Health and SafetyThe company’s facilities are certified to the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard. Committed to achieving its goal of becoming ‘Zero Accident Work Place’, Personal Protective Equipment is provided to all workers on the shop floor and their use is strictly enforced.Transparency and GovernanceThe company maintains an open door policy of inviting competitors and outsiders to visit its plants to interchange ideas. "We have highly analytical annual report covering detailed financial and non financial information. We are the first cement company to issue Corporate Sustainability Report based upon GRI guidelines," says Prashant Bangur.Successful implementation of some of the projects at SCL:-Thermal power plants have traditionally used Water Cooled Condenser (WCC) systems. Bearing in mind the location of our operations in one of India’s most water scarce regions, we operationalized the switch from a Water Cooled Condenser to Air Cooled Condenser system. Retrofitting of the old system to convert it to ACC was a challenging task requiring considerable skill; the retrofitting task was completed and the ACC was commissioned without any alignment problems.Implementation of air cooled condensers at its power plant in Beawar has enabled reduced water consumption by about 70 per cent.Waste heat utilization of Preheater & clinker coolerTwo major sources of heat rejection In a cement plant are pre-heater and clinker cooler hot gases. Waste heat recovery system installation in these two sources not only generates electricity also saves water for cooling down the gases. "Our earlier experience with the waste heat boiler in unit-I gave a strong background for installation of waste heat recovery system in other units with improved systems to generate electricity as well as to save the water used to cool down the gases," says Bangur. This has reduced water consumption by about 85 per cent in the power plant and 50 per cent in clinker production.