AIM 5

Achieving net water positivity by 2030

Water has been identified as a societal risk, with access to clean water emerging as one of the most critical issues affecting economic activity across the world. With many of our operations in water-stressed areas, we maintain sustained focus on efficient water use, and giving back more water to the environment than we take. Not only are we exploring less water-intensive technologies and embedding circularity in our water management, but also ensuring water security in areas where we operate by replenishing water in watersheds and other community sources.

Key material issues

Water security

SDGs impacted

Sub-goals6.3: By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimising release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally

6.4: By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity

6.5: By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate

6.6: Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management

GOVERNANCE

The Water Community of Practice is tasked with the implementation of this aim.

Water is a shared resource on which both our host communities and our operations depend upon. At Vedanta, we ensure that water is kept as a central consideration across our operations through initiatives such as water screening assessment. We manage our water resources as per guidance by the Group water policy and management standards. We have consistently improved our water recycling rate in the past four years, with our Hindustan Zinc business turning fully water positive.

As part of our new ESG framework, we have taken our aim to be water positive by 2030. We will track our performance using specific indicators such as freshwater withdrawal, water consumption, water recycling and water recharge to keep track of this target.

WATER RISK ASSESSMENT

In FY2022, we began the work to develop our water stewardship strategy, aligned to our goal of becoming a water positive organisation. A first step in this journey was to understand the catchment/basin level and operational risks posed to our business and the communities who live around our operations. WRI Aqueduct and WRF Risk Filters were used to evaluate water risks. Findings from the assessment indicate that in FY2022, operational risk (physical, regulatory and reputation risk) is very low at four sites, low at 26 sites, medium at two site and higher at one site out of 33 sites. Basin level risk is high for 22 sites and medium for 11 sites.

We have begun work on developing plans to improve the health of the high-risk freshwater basins. This plan involves restoring or building water recharge structures in order to improve water replenishment rates. We will also look at improving water efficiency and maximising recycling/reuse of water in order to reduce freshwater demand.

As of FY2022, Hindustan Zinc is 2.41 times water positive.

CASE STUDY

Zero Liquid Discharge plant at Zinc Smelter at Debari: Circularity in action

During the year, the Debari zinc smelter successfully commissioned a 3,000 kilolitre per day (KLD) zero liquid discharge ZLD plant. The newly installed RO-ZLD plant recycles processed water, which is then reused in operations, enabling complete utilisation of the wastewater, thereby ensuring that there is no discharge. The salt generated can also be reused in the leaching process as a replacement for commercial sodium sulphate being used currently.

The initiative has led to substantial reduction in water need for water regeneration. With 91% RO efficiency, the ZLD plant has an overall efficiency of 96%

HZL plans to commission ZLD plants at all units. Expansion of 3,200 KLD ZLD plant at Dariba Smelter is under progress and shall be commissioned by Q2 of FY2023. At Zawar Mines (ZM) and Rampura Agucha Mine (RAM) too, ZLD projects of 4,000 KLD capacity each have been initiated to improve recycling and strengthen the zero discharge. A dry tailing plant at Rajpura Dariba Mine (RDM) is also in the final stage of commissioning. It will result in significant amount of water recovery from the tailing.

Our ZLD projects and dry tailing plants helped HZL increase its water recycling rate to 44% in FY2022 from 39% in the previous fiscal year.

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