Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL)

Hindustan Zinc Limited’s materiality assessment addresses nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities in its direct operations and upstream value chain.​

• Impacts: water use, terrestrial ecosystem use, freshwater ecosystem use, GHG emissions, non-GHG emissions, water pollutants, soil pollutants.​
• Dependencies: climate regulation, ground water, mass stabilization and erosion control, surface water, water flow maintenance, water quality.​
• Risks (non-exhaustive list): policy risks may arise from potential changes in environmental regulations governing groundwater extraction and management.​
• Opportunities (non-exhaustive list): Substitution of natural resources by recycled, regenerative, renewable and/or ethically responsibly sourced organic inputs.

• Hindustan Zinc Limited is one of the 17 companies participating in the initial SBTN Target Validation Pilot. HZL has 2025 and 2030 targets for the nature realms i.e. atmosphere, freshwater and land.​
• For atmosphere, HZL has set targets to address climate change, by committing for example by 2030 to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% and scope 3 emissions by 25%. ​
• For freshwater, HZL aims by 2030 to achieve water neutrality at watershed level for its operations by reducing freshwater consumption in water scarce areas by 50%.​
• For land, the target is about the circular economy with a Zero Waste to landfill objective, and about biodiversity conservation, with the objective of no net loss of biodiversity at all mine sites by closure through applying mitigation hierarchy against a 2020 baseline, as well as no gross deforestation in protected areas and strive to achieve no net deforestation in operating sites by 2050 against the baseline of 2020. ​
• HZL also includes global disclosure indicators and metrics for the drivers of nature change that are material for their business and maps those against the GBF’s Targets. For instance, the pollution removal of the water discharged is connected to the following targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework: Target 7 (7.1 Index of coastal eutrophication potential), and Target 11 (B.1 Services provided by ecosystems).​

• To effectively implement these targets, HZL has devised a mitigation hierarchy plan and integrated the Science Based Target for Nature AR3T framework.​
• HZL has taken concrete steps to mitigate risks and capitalize on opportunities. For example: Biodiversity Management Plans, centered around the risks and opportunities on short, medium and long-term impacts, are being developed for each site of Hindustan Zinc Limited.

• HZL’s board plays a pivotal role in overseeing all aspects of sustainability as they relate to the company’s long-term business strategy. The board oversees the objectives in the Biodiversity Policy of the company, especially its commitment to achieve No-Net Loss at operation level by implementation of the Mitigation Hierarchy.​
• To ensure robust governance for sustainability management including nature-related components, the company has established two board-level committees:​

 – The Audit and Risk Management Committee (ARC) of the Board ensures an effective internal control environment.​

– The Sustainability and ESG Committee is responsible for overseeing the strategy implementation, policy development, and the establishment and review of goals and targets aimed at enhancing stakeholder commitment, convenes semi-annually.