Bharti Airtel has just announced about the formation of a new ESG Committee of Board of Directors. The telco wants to sharpen its focus towards environmental, sustainability, and governance (ESG) agenda. The Chairman of the ESG Committee will be Manish Kejriwal. Other board members are - Nisaba Godrej, Independent Director; D.K. Mittal, Independent Director; Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Non-Executive Director; and Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO (India and South Asia).
ESG Committee to Provide Oversight to Bharti Airtel
The role of the ESG Committee would be to offer oversights to Bharti Airtel on its progress on the ESG targets, initiatives and best practices. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises said that it is the responsibility of the businesses to sharpen their ESG agendas so that they can contribute to the global efforts for fighting climate change. Mittal added that Airtel has always set high standards of corporate governance, transparency and has proactively laid out a comprehensive ESG roadmap. For the unaware, Bharti Airtel has committed to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 Green House Gasses (GHG) emissions 50.2% by FY2031 from FY2021 as the base year. Further, the telco has set a goal of reducing the scope 3 GHG emissions 42% over the same time frame. Bharti Airtel will achieve meet its ESG agendas by accelerated green energy adoption across its network operations. The telco is also building energy efficient infrastructure and processes. Airtel is working hard to implement sustainable business practices at its workplaces. Bharti Airtel has also become the first telecom company in India to join the United Nations (UN) Global Impact. UN Global Impact is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world. The telco is also aligned with the Paris Climate Accord. For just the FY ending 2021, Bharti Airtel’s e-bills contributed to saving 667 tonnes paper sheets. Further, 5,554.3 tonnes of e-waste was recycled.