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Sustainability

Sustainability

Our ESG Vision

"We aim to become a responsible and best in class power distribution company. We have been focusing on formulating our plans and approach in alignment with the broader ESG agendas of the Nation. Our relentless efforts in continuously monitoring, measuring, analyzing and disclosing our performance across the triple bottom line will definitely enrich our long-term stakeholder values in this sustainability journey."

- Dr. Sanjiv Goenka, Chairman, CESC

At CESC sustainability is about supplying safe, cost effective, low carbon and reliable electricity through our responsible and diverse value chain.

Our ESG Priorities

Materiality assessment helps us evaluate risks and opportunities to business, understand stakeholder expectations and consider it in our strategies and decision making. The matrix below depicts the material topics in respect to two dimensions- significant to external stakeholders and importance to business.

Climate Change

We realize that on acknowledging climate change risk will unlock new opportunities for business which will enable key drivers in creating a sustainable enterprise. Low carbon transformation can be achieved through continuously improving energy productivity, increasing reliance to renewable energy in our power value chain and arresting pollutions to the environment by assessing the latest available technologies.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

100% of the new substations/offices will be certified as green buildings
100% plant administration buildings will be certified as green buildings

Key initiative

Leveraging Micro-grid for Sustainable Power

sustainability With 100 kWP floating solar and 218 kWh Battery Energy Storage Systems in Chakmir substation, we have launched the first set of microgrids in our system. As we begin to understand the performance capacity of this system, that can be “islanded” to continue serving its own load while the grid is down, we aim to scale up the capacity of the microgrids to support critical services such as hospitals as well as reap the low impact benefits of the technology to offset diesel generation in residential complexes, thus, reducing air pollution. In the future we aim to help serve consumers better with the scaled technology.

Our Hallmark Green Building Certifications

sustainability As a part of the power industry, we believe in leading as an example. Our transformative journey of converting 1.3 million square feet of operating area into certified green building spaces has contributed to our goal to become the most responsible player in the industry. Our efforts have been recognized with numerous awards by prestigious organizations such as United States Green Building Council (USGBC), some the first of their kind in India. We are committed through our efforts to ensure that all new buildings are certified Green Buildings and retrofit of all existing building is as per the Green Building guidelines.

Implementation of Advanced Machine Learning (ML) model to Screen Infructuous Inspections

65% of inspections conducted on around 40,000 meters each year by CESC have been identified as infructuous cases, leading to delay of resolution of actual metering defects. CESC has now deployed a ML model that screens and audits the worthiness of the job, enabling quicker direct resolution if predicted as defective. Our ML model reduces the wastage of manpower, time and fuel resulting from infructuous cases by lowering rate of truck roll outs.

Building Resilience through Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)

sustainability We have installed grid connected 315 kWh BESS at low voltage levels in East Calcutta Substation. We plan to aggressively increase the capacity to 10 MWh by undertaking the necessary feasibility studies. Energy storage systems not only helps us improve the level of reliability and increase distribution quality indicators but also supports in integration of renewable energy to the grid along with other benefits not limited to better management of peak load demand.

Adoption of Electric Vehicles

sustainability We have embarked on a journey towards complete transformation of the distribution fleet to electric vehicles by 2030. At present in collaboration with Kolkata Municipal Corporation, we have installed EV Public Charging Stations at three strategic locations. We also provided supply to West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) for the establishment of electric bus charging stations.

Adoption of electric cooking

We have promoted the use of e-cooking devices at the International Kolkata Book Fair. With an objective to provide a clean and healthy environment to public, we aim to assist 10,000 commercial/industrial/residential canteens and roadside eateries in adopting e-cooking and replacing conventional fuels by 2030.

Reducing T&D loss from 71.62% to 10%.at Topsia-Tiljala Area

sustainability Having identified through zone segregation and consumer indexing that electricity theft was the major cause of revenue losses by high distribution losses, in November 2016, we have curbed losses through application of innovative management, social and technical measures.

Water Management

Water is a primary requirement for power plants to generate electricity, hence availability of water is viewed as a significant risk to CESC. We continuously strive to reduce our water intensity through various water conservation initiatives and maximizing reuse and recycle of freshwater.

CESC optimizes its internal water use and ensures water availability in the surrounding area for irrigation and drinking water as per the requirements of local communities.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

Our Approach

Key Initiative

Case Study: Dhariwal Infrastructure Limited adapting to water stress

sustainability DIL located in the drought prone area of Chandrapur district of Maharashtra faces acute water stress in the region. The zero liquid discharge thermal power station adapts and mitigates the impact of the growing water stress

Environment Management

We understand that the availability of ecological goods and services are essential to economic growth. The Company is aware of and respects the limitations pertaining to availability of the ecological goods and services including the provisions for competitive uses and users of ecological systems as per existing environmental regulations and addresses this scarcity by protecting and maintaining ecology and improving operational efficiency.

SDG Focus

Emissions Management

Waste Management

Key initiative

Case Study: Substitution of Natural River Sand in Concrete by using Bottom Ash of Coal Based Thermal Power Plants

sustainability Bottom ash has similar properties as natural river sand which opens the possibilities of using bottom ash as a substitute of natural river sand in making concrete. Based on extensive research, field, and laboratory trials it has been inferred that a maximum of 70% substitution of natural river sand by bottom ash is possible for different grades of concrete used in non-structural and structural applications.

Scan based meter segregation & Re-use of Off-Circuit Good Meter

A scan based intelligent system has been implemented to segregate good and defective meters and also to ascertain if such meters are within or outside warranty period. Through the establishment of this process defective off circuit meters (within warranty period) are sent to vendors within a reasonable time for replenishment and the good off-circuit meters are reused in our operations. Over 12,000 off-circuit meters have been reused till date. Significant reduction in the new meter procurement cost, decreased lead time for segregation of assets, reduction in electronic and paper waste generation have been the major advantages achieved from this program.

Conserving Biodiversity at Haldia Energy Limited

As an environmental steward, we are fully complaint with all environmental regulations governing conservation of wild habitats, species of flora and fauna and forestry in local communities and are committed towards our obligation to safeguard the regenerative processes and interactive ecosystems.

Corporate Governance

Our governance framework aims to uphold the highest uncompromising standards of transparency, accountability, independence and ethics. The framework strives toward achieving the maximum stakeholder value

Transparency

We believe in maintaining transparency and public accountable to our ESG commitments. We publish information related to our annual ESG performance on annual ESG Report truthfully, completely and with reliably.

Independence

CESC encourages members of the committee and the Board of Directors to put forth independent views and act morally and ethically in adherence to the Code of Conduct. The Group’s Core Values are drivers to achieving the highest standards of ethics and integrity in dealing with its stakeholders.

Accountability

Diversity within the Board is driven by their subject matter expertise, skills, achievements and competencies which are enabling factors towards a robust governance of policies and procedures and provide key insights on strategy. Along with the Board we have five committees namely the Audit Committee, CSR Committee, Stakeholder Relationship Committee, the Nomination and Renumeration Committee and the Risk Management Committee who are responsible for enforcing policies and procedures across business functions.

Ethics

Every business of CESC, its subsidiaries and joint ventures will conduct business in an ethical manner and the directors and all employees, including senior management will conduct themselves in accordance with the highest moral and ethical standard as per ‘The Ethics and Code of Conduct’.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

Women represent 30% of the Board of Directors
Implement ISO 37001 anti-bribery certification across operation

‘Sustainability’, our 7th Pillar

‘Sustainability’ as a pillar is the recent addition to our list of Values. It has always been a driving pillar for ensuring long term value creation among our stakeholders and is embedded into our way of doing business. This also sets a benchmark and boosts our competitiveness in the market.

Responsible Supply Chain

Business partners of CESC embrace the principle of “We Source Responsibly”. We continuously strive to create a supply chain that is reliable, resilient and above all responsible. For CESC, a responsible supply chain ensures compliance to environmental and social regulation while identifying and mitigating risks thereby, future proofing any disruptions.

Our role is to become a precursor to the business growth of several local micro, small and medium scale industries who have been key partners in the organization’s resilience during challenging situations.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

Our Approach to integrating Sustainability in our Supply Chain

Key Initiatives

Empowering women in our community

sustainability M/S Mahila Samabyay Shilpa Kutir Ltd., a non-profit organisation located at Barrackpore works toward development and welfare of more than 80 differently abled women from marginalized communities. Our relationship with M/S Mahila Samabyay Shilpa Kutir Ltd. traces back to 2003, when we first awarded a purchase order for handloom cotton dusters used by all our workers. Today, we continue to create a difference to the livelihoods of these women by helping their business grow by four-fold over the last 3 years.

Indianizing our supply chain

sustainability Sourcing the 70 sq. overhead service kit from a vendor outside West Bengal and another outside India was resulting in high lead time and the inventory for the kit was out of stock for most periods. To mitigate the risk of procurement from a single source supplier, in 2021, M/s Classic & Co., a local Howrah based manufacturer was identified, re-engineering the materials and developing the capabilities of the supplier to manufacture all four types of accessories. Through the development of the local supplier our lead time reduced to 1 month and we reaped significant cost saving benefits.

Creating Shared Value with our Suppliers

sustainability At CESC we value the relationship with all our suppliers. We have forged relationships based on trust to overcome several impediments to our business continuity and we intend to reciprocate by doing the same for our suppliers. One such example is M/S Alcond Employees’ Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd., a manufacturer of aluminium and steel parts, a critical supplier since 2010. Since 2018, the supplier was facing financial distress, on the verge of lockdown. In 2020, we rekindled business relations by placing orders of large volumes, supporting in sustaining the vendor. Last couple of years has witnessed a gradual financial recovery for the supplier with increase in business volumes.

Introduction of Resilient and Environmentally Safe Products

sustainability While we embrace the 3R principle, we collaborate with our suppliers to find solutions and alternate materials to help us remain committed to using resilient and environmentally safe materials to ensuring a reliable, safe and continuous supply of power to consumers. One o0f the key initiatives has been the replacement of mineral oil with ester oil.

Customer focus

Guaranteeing high level quality service and maximizing customer satisfaction has been our priority. Through enhanced customer service offerings and adoption of cutting-edge technology for reliable and continuous power we create an environment of trust, convenience and reliability.

SDG Focus

2030 Target

95% TAT adherence to consumer complaints
Maintain Average Response time below 1 hr for large area outages
More than 90% of the payments made will occur from digital platform

Our Approach

Key Initiatives

Aastha, a Multilingual Voicebot

Aastha, is a one-of-a-kind initiative, enabled with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) & Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities, is integrated with the existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Outage Management System to ensure quick and uniform assistance to our customers. By doing so, we became the first power utility, in the country, to introduce a humanoid providing voice-based assistance to consumers in regional language apart from English and Hindi via. the CRM for outage management. Another advantage of the VoiceBot is the elimination of wait time when our call centre executives are busy.

Multi-Channel Online payment

As a part of the mass-movement towards creating a Digital India, CESC has been relentlessly pursuing upon multiple initiatives to enhance digital payments. Over the last 5 years we have witnessed our online payment penetration increase from 20% to 71%. For NPCL and CESC Rajasthan the online payment penetration is 86% and 62% respectively. With a greater goal of improving the online payment penetration further to 90% by 2030, we are targeting to expand on options in the digital ecosystem.

Intelligent Outage Management

We at CESC are committed to providing our consumers 24*7 quality and stable power supply throughout the year, however unexpected and un-anticipated power outages due to faults seldom occur. To uphold our promise to consumers, we have implemented the intelligent outage management system.

Preventive to Predictive Maintenance

Focusing on “Zero Downtime” for further enhancement of operational efficiency we have adopted several state-of-the-art technologies for predictive maintenance. These include self-healing network, Remote IoT based monitoring of critical assets, drone-based monitoring of transmission infrastructure and pan tilt motor mounted thermal cameras for monitoring of substation assets.

Setting Global Standards for Reliability: Success over Cyclone Yaas

sustainability Coming off the heels of the super cyclone Amphan in Kolkata, we geared up our organization wide readiness to face and mitigate such adverse challenges. To mitigate the challenges, a disaster management plan and a comprehensive set of standard operating procedures for pre, during & post disaster activities have been prepared for each department with guidance of the top management. A three-layered governance structure comprising of ADMG (Apex Disaster Management Group), CDMG (Central Disaster Management Group) and NDMG (Nodal Disaster Management Group) with defined responsibility matrix have been tasked to oversee the execution of the plan. This plan entails a 3-tier approach focused on communication & coordination, redundancy enhancement and resource augmentation to ensure adequacy of preparation during not only cyclones but nor’westers, floods and earthquakes. The case study below showcases the necessary arrangements that were put to effect by us to manage recent landfall of cyclone "Yaas".

Energy Access

Ensuring access to affordable electricity is important for building trust with regulators and customers while providing opportunities for local economic development and attracting new businesses in the licensed areas. In this regard, CESC operations are aligned with the parameters of Ease of Doing Business (EODB).

SDG Focus

Our Approach

Key Initiatives

Implementation of Block Meters in Slums and Marketplaces

sustainability Through block meters, we are able to limit the number of wires running across the consumer premises and prevent the risk of cluttered wiring, thereby ensuring safety to citizens. Further the concerned municipal authority/market committee/slum committee enjoy due rate slab benefit which ensures affordable power to stallholders at the market and slum dwellers.

Data Privacy and Security

Being in the business of distributing power to our consumers, security of the infrastructure is essential for business continuity. Although technology has benefitted us in serving our customers, it can make the grid more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Being vigilant against cyberattacks and safeguarding the privacy and confidentiality of sensitive stakeholder data has therefore been a top priority for us at CESC.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

Implementation of ISO 27001 across generation and distribution utilities and leading to unified compliance management programme while complying with Ministry of Power /CERT-IN guidelines as well as the readiness to comply with the Personal Data Protection Bill whenever enacted

At least one cybersecurity assessment/validation each year

Our Approach

Key Initiatives

Business Continuity Plan

Business Continuity Plan Being in a dynamic environment. we assess our r.dine. for busine. continuity from time to time, through the following:

Upgrading our DC/DR to take advantage of Hyper Converged Infrastructure, state-of-the-art 24x7 Network Operation Centre (NOC) 8, Security Operation Centre (SOC).
Adoption of a global standard User Email system for Corporate Use.
Use of appropriate high availability Web Application Firewall (WAF) both at internal & perimeter levels lor protection of internal & external-facing applications
Exploring appropriate Cyber lnsurance coverage with various insurance providers to assess and plan for the same accordingly.
Mock drills as per the CMP (Crisis Management Plan) are practised in the Generation and Distribution divisions.

Innovation Management

Sustainability is one of our Core Values, that fosters us to innovate. Both, sustainability and innovation are inseparable and go hand in hand in overcoming challenges and enabling us to lead the change in Powering a Sustainable Future. We at CESC, are open to innovative ideas for ensuring safe, cost-efficient, low carbon and reliable power.

SDG Focus

2030 Targets

25 employees in the R&D team

Our Approach

Key Initiatives

With a 123-year-old legacy, CESC’s intellectual capital is reflected in our knowledge and capability, copyrights, patents, software, rights and licenses.

Sustainability

Our ESG Vision

- Dr. Sanjiv Goenka, Chairman, CESC