Tirupati Graphite plc (LON:TGR, TGRHF.OTCQX), the specialist graphite and graphene company developing sustainable new age materials, published its Sustainability report in 2021.
Puruvi Poddar, Chief of Corporate and Business Development, said, “We are extremely proud to be the first graphite company to publish a Sustainability Report in line with the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) global standards for sustainability reporting”.
In the report, Puruvi states: “We firmly believe: scientific knowledge, its development and application are the mother of innovation. Innovation is a necessity to combat the most glaring global threats of climate risk, disparity in quality of life and responsible human activities. The opportunities of value creation in these challenges are immense and we as a global corporate citizen find ourselves bestowed with these opportunities. Our areas of specialisation; flake graphite, a critical material and essential element in a green economy, new age 2D materials – graphene and its derivatives have the potential to evolve the world of materials to reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and improve the life cycle of materials; our location provides us with the opportunity to improve the quality of life of some of the most deprived and the extensive depth and diversity in our human capital helps us contribute the mitigating the threats.
At Tirupati, we are proud to be working in this exciting sector; evolving and developing eco-friendly processes, green materials, technologies, and strategies with a focus on reducing emissions and waste to deliver long-term value creation for the globe.
Mother earth is the source for everything around us and responsible utilisation of these resources is our paramount duty. While we have no option but to rely on her for the resources we need, as part of our sustainable mining strategy, targeting low emissions and waste generation at our mining and processing operations in Madagascar, we maintain a key focus on the continued optimisation and reduction of our energy requirements and make the most of the resources we mine. Not only do we attain industry high recoveries of >85% of the graphite from the ore by utilising innovative technologies, but we also extract waste material in the ore as by-products to make our processes more efficient and deliver zero-waste. For our energy needs, we are developing renewable alternatives as much as mother nature provides the opportunity for, hydropower facilities that will significantly reduce our overall emissions, which we shall follow with other renewable opportunities. Recycling and reusing principles including for water and packaging materials amongst others are deeply embedded in our core and implemented at the first opportunity. In our drive to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint, while making the most of what we mine from mother earth, we are engaged in continued green cover development. In as much as our leaders have set timelines for the net zero journey, we are on the path with efforts to evolve faster.
Another string to our bow is our drive to develop processing technologies that are greener and cleaner than those conventionally used in our activities. This inclination has resulted in the development of zero-chemical process for manufacturing graphene, and development of our zerohydrofluoric (“HF”), zero-waste flake graphite purification technology, which we believe sets us apart from peers. To drive green technologies across our ecosystem and leverage the knowledge gained for use by others in mineral processing, our technology centre provides services for increasing efficiency and reducing waste generation for processing for various other minerals and ores.
We also firmly believe that the Company’s success shall be defined by its people and stakeholders; our management and operations leaders, technocrats and scientists, employees and local communities, and stakeholders and shareholders are our most valuable assets. In Madagascar, where we have the opportunity to improve the quality of lives of some of the most deprived, having first gained an understanding of their needs, we structured a community engagement programme called “Shakuntalam”, symbolising motherhood, aimed at addressing some of the community’s main concerns on livelihood, health, hygiene and safety, infrastructure and connectivity, education, skills development and sports and recreation for the upliftment of the local communities. Today, we directly employ over 500 people in Madagascar and have created indirect employment for several hundred more. We are a significant contributor to the Madagascan economy and positively impacting the lives of thousands of people in one of the most deprived regions of the world.
Throughout the pandemic, we played an active role in the Madagascan community by being a continuous source of income and by providing medical facilities that dispensed basic medicines through our community medical centre, provided access to oxygen concentrators, doctors, and transfers to hospitals amongst other support. On the wider front, the Company conducted regular testing as part of its operating protocols across each of its divisions in both Madagascar and India, and engaged in promoting vaccination drives amongst its people.
The principle of zero-harm, equality, unity in diversity and operations with safety and care have been nurtured in each team member over the years. As well as having had no fatalities since inception, we engage in programmes that emphasise employee health wellbeing in and out of the office and workplace.
On the corporate side, we regularly engage with stakeholders by updates to the markets, investor engagements, live presentations, interviews and participations in conferences and many more activities. We have voluntarily adopted the QCA Code of Governance for small and medium companies, as far as is practicable considering the size and nature of our company and are engaged in its implementation in true spirit. As operations and teams are expanding, the Company has adopted a goal-setting framework that helps define and track each employees’ objectives and is embarking on a journey of 100% digitalisation. Manuals and codes are being developed for each activity and department to facilitate coordinated operations and smooth expansion of our activities for which we have set goals further.
We acknowledge that we are at the start of our journey and that as we grow, our strategies and plans will also evolve. However, ultimately, our ESG vision remains the same: to create a benchmark for the highest standards of ESG focusing on green materials, green technologies, social development and good governance to help build a better, happier and healthier world in which we live”.
Please find a link to the full Tirupati Graphite Sustainability Report 2021 here:
