Transforming for Good, our refreshed ESG vision, is supported by three pillars – Transforming communities, transforming the planet and transforming the workplace. These pillars reflect Vedanta’s unwavering commitment to becoming a best-in-class company while also ensuring that we are future-ready to deal with current and emerging risks. These pillars are supported by nine goals, each of which has specific quantifiable goals to track our progress. The goals for each were reached after a thorough examination of our material aspects, the interests and concerns of our stakeholders, including investors and ESG rating agencies and our management ambitions.

Transforming communities

As per our redefined ESG strategy, our overall purpose is supported by three pillars. The first pillar – Transforming communities – underpins the critical role communities play in the continued longevity of our business. They are often the first to see the impacts of our business, and we believe, they should be among the first to experience the positive transformation industry can bring to their lives. This pillar reminds us that we need to cultivate trusting relationships with communities who live around our operational areas and see them as partners in and key stakeholders in our growth journey. At the same time, we continue to build upon the strong social impact projects that help bring access to healthcare, education, livelihood programmes, revival of cultural traditions, and development or upkeep of public infrastructure. In FY2022 alone, our CSR initiatives have benefited nearly, 4.63 million people across 1,268 villages, including through the establishment of 3,200+ Nand Ghars, which ensure that women and children get access to quality early childhood education and nutrition, even in the remotest parts of the country.

9 OUT OF THE 17 TRANSITION METALS ARE PART OF VEDANTA’S PORTFOLIO.

Transforming the planet

Vedanta’s commitment to become a Net Zero carbon business by 2050 or sooner was a key highlight for the year under the second pillar of Transforming the planet. Taking early action, we by signed a 580 MW renewable power delivery agreement; launched the Restora and Restora Ultra brand of green aluminium to usher in a new era of green metals and became the largest purchaser of renewable power in the country. During the year, we achieved nearly 100% recycling of our High Volume Low Toxicity (HVLT) waste. The Jharsuguda unit dispatched the first fly ash rake to a cement plat, in line with our goal of transitioning to a greener business model. We also made significant progress in inventorising our Scope 3 emissions, and we have published the results in this report. We are making significant progress toward meeting our commitments to renewable energy and decarbonisation, as you will find in this report.

Assisted by latest technologies, we are moving toward using cleaner fuels in our operations. VAL-Lanjigarh has signed a partnership with GAIL for the supply of natural gas. This fuel switch will reduce alumina emission intensity by about 20%. We are collaborating with TERI on a number of environmental initiatives involving water, climate, and habitat management. We have set ourselves a goal of becoming water positive by 2030 and have onboarded an agency to monitor and guide our journey towards water positivity at our various locations. I am proud to report that Hindustan Zinc is 2.41x water positive. We are also actively working towards ensuring the integrity of our tailings dams and are striving to align all our tailings facilities with ICMM’s Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) by FY2025.

Transforming the workplace

Under the third pillar of transforming the workplace, we are making steady progress towards ensuring greater gender parity, diversity and inclusivity across the organisation, down from the senior leadership and decision-making bodies. Our people practices reflect our promise to be an inclusive business and we are an equal-opportunity employer when it comes to attracting, retaining and developing fresh talent. We are also conscious of how our organisation is run. We ensure that good governance is practised across the organisation through stringent policies and regulations, and we are constantly seeking to raise the bar.

As the Group’s Chief Safety Officer, I am deeply saddened by the loss of 12 lives during the year. We are taking steps to minimise incidents and improving our overall safety performance. Our senior leadership team has completed their investigation into the incidents and the outcomes have been shared immediately with all our sites to deploy the learnings. Safety stand-downs have been conducted across the sites to communicate the learning to all employees and business partners. We have also initiated the implementation of fatality learnings across businesses, led by the CEOs, together with increased leadership time on field through Visible Felt Leadership (VFL) and personal safety programmes. Further, we have onboarded DuPont Sustainability Solutions for the implementation of Critical Risk Management.

Looking ahead

Mining has historically been a capital-intensive industry that has been slow to develop and/or adopt new technologies. Technology advancements are critical in assisting Vedanta to meet not only our operational objectives, but also our goals of creating a safe and healthy workplace and a more sustainable business. We launched the Green Spark Group-wide programme to scale up partnerships with innovative start-ups to leverage their technological capability and execution speed, with the goal of achieving strategic goals in operational excellence, new product development, and 360-degree sustainability.

Our business will continue to improve and grow, and we will keep our promises. Looking ahead, we must all work together to help rebuild economies and protect our natural world. To that end, mining products are becoming increasingly important in improving people’s lives, an important component of which is making our planet a healthier place.

This report also serves as a Communication of Progress (COP) for the UN Global Compact reporting principles.

Regards,

Sunil Duggal

CEO