Sesa Goa is committed to create value for its stakeholders in a sustainable manner, minimise adverse environmental impacts, and work in cohesion with the community, government bodies, non-governmental organisations and other groups. Health, safety and environment (HSE) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are of paramount importance to Sesa Goa. In addition, the Company's sustainable development model promotes efficient use of resources such as energy and water, minimises the negative impact on biodiversity, and reduces waste and emissions including greenhouse gases.

As a part of its sustainable development communication and reporting system, Sesa Goa produces every year its Sustainability Development Report, complaint to GRI G3 guidelines and maintaining its appliction level A+ since last 3 years. All the reports are also available on GRI website apart from the Companies website.

The Company is signatory to UN Global Compact from 2009-10, and submitting the communication of progress to the principles of UNGC.

Health, Safety and Environment (HSE)

Sesa Goa's top management, through its HSE Committee, steers the Company's initiatives by setting annual targets and reviewing progress. The emphasis is on integrating HSE with the decisionmaking process. Today, all the Company's locations are certified for ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 except Sesa Resources Limited, which is yet to be certified for OHSAS 18001. Sesa Goa has well qualified HSE and CSR teams across all its operations. At present, there are 54 such professionals.

Occupational Health

The Company aims to provide a workplace that is free from hazards of occupational illness. The health of all employees is checked annually across the group companies. Inhouse facilities for occupational health monitoring are available in the mines and the factory sites. Dust, noise and lighting levels are regularly monitored to ensure good workplace hygiene. Whenever a risk is identified, the Company takes early steps to quantify, control and prevent it through proactive measures.

The Company's doctors impart awareness about health education and related issues to the employees and local communities around its operations. The emphasis is on improving health and hygiene and preventing communicable diseases. During 2010-11, there were no occupational illnesses reported in Sesa Goa.

Safety

The Company aims for zero accidents and a safe working environment. This is promoted through a well established system of checks and balances, and the reporting of accidents and incidents, including the nearmisses. These are thoroughly investigated to identify systematic safety deficiencies. On identifying such gaps, preventative measures are put in place.

There is sharing of safety lessons learned and best practices through exchange of information across the group. The organisation encourages employee participation in safety committees and safety promotional programmes. New initiatives are regularly introduced for continual improvement in safety performance.

Chart H shows that for the Company as a whole, the frequency and severity of accidents (FSI) has declined from 0.93 in 2009-10 to 0.50 in 2010-11. FSI increase in the shipping business is because of a fatality occurred at one of our jetty where a barge sailor lost his life in an unusual accident. The met coke plant achieved zero lost time injury incidents for the second consecutive year and the pig iron division has also achieved zero lost time injury incidents during 2010-11.

Environment

Mining is about exhausting natural resources. Thus, it is important to replenish as much as possible and extract ore with minimal peripheral damage to the environment. Sesa Goa is conscious of this challenge. From planting trees at the mining sites to conserving water, managing solid waste and reducing energy consumption, the Company takes many steps towards environment conservation and minimising the impact of mining on the surrounding environment and society.

The Company's responsibility does not end with operating the mines. It extends after the mine site is closed. Sesa Goa ensures regeneration of the earth that has been mined, helps sustain the biodiversity and addresses the needs of local communities. In the long term, the goal is to restore the land to as close to its original state as possible.

The Company has a full-fledged environment management team to plan, implement and monitor environment management programmes. The focus is on:

• Pre-planning of mining operations.
• Adoption of new and efficient technologies.
• Modernisation of equipment.
• Implementing new ways of operating to minimise the negative impact on environment.
• Conserving natural resources through efficient use.

Energy Conservation

Sesa Goa has established and implemented clear energy conservation targets, which vary from 3% to 5% reduction of specific energy consumption across all locations. Projects for energy conservation are identified and undertaken in a systematic manner and are reviewed every quarter to ensure the targets are actually achieved.

• In 2010-11, the Company has been able to maintain specific energy consumptions at 0.106 giga joule per MT (GJ/MT) of output in mining.
• For the PID, it reduced from 0.560 GJ/MT in 2009-10 to 0.501 GJ/MT in 2010-11.
• In met coke, it reduced from 0.139 GJ/MT in 2009-10 to 0.136 in 2010-11.

Water Conservation

The main focus on the water management is on reducing fresh water consumption, increasing the use of harvested rain water, reducing specific consumption, and increasing recycling and re-use of treated effluent. The Company follows the concept of zero discharge, with a robust system to undertake and monitor tight water conservation targets every quarter. Water managers are located at each of the sites to identify water conservation projects in consultation with the operating team.

Water conservation is managed through:

• Continuous use of recycled water for mining operations and for beneficiating iron ore, thereby reducing freshwater consumption by about 70%.
• The rainwater accumulated in mine pits is used for beneficiation and spraying. The tailings generated during beneficiation are treated and water is then recycled back.
• The water requirement of the pig iron and met coke plants is met from rainwater harvested in the exhausted Sanquelim mine pit and partly through government supply.
• In case of Karnataka operations, ground water is used to meet dust suppression requirements. This is supplemented by rainwater harvesting in ponds during the monsoon, which is also used for the nursery plantations.

Total water consumed in mining operations has reduced from 14.9 million kilolitres in 2009-10 to 11 million kilolitres in 2010-11.

Climate Change

Climate change is an important aspect to Sesa Goa. The Company has undertaken steps to measure its impact on the environment by periodically mapping its carbon footprint. The registration of the 'Waste Heat Recovery Based Power Plant Project' with the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) has led to generation of carbon revenue which not only makes the project sustainable but also creates an additional revenue stream. 1,00,438 CERs was accrued during 2010-11.

During the year, Sesa Goa was selected as one among the 10 leaders for CDLI (Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index) shortlisted companies from 200 CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) respondents and published in the CDP report 2010, India 200.

Waste Management

Sesa Goa adopts a '4R' waste strategy - reduce, recycle, reuse and reclaim. The focus is on improving material efficiency; reducing waste generation; and enhancing recovery and reuse of discarded material. The mining, beneficiation, metal extraction and coke making activities result in the generation of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste. An example of waste management is given below.

Iron ore tailings contain iron concentrations of around 45%. Due to increasing cost of land and scarcity of mining assets, it makes economic and environmental sense to reduce the proportion of tailings in the beneficiation process. This was achieved by adding Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separation (WHIMS) units to the beneficiation plants. Due to this innovation, there was a gain of 11,000 tonnes per year of usable iron ore, representing around 2% of the feed material.