The Tata Steel envisions new environment initiatives on the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5 every year. Under the community environment initiatives of renewable energy sources, the group has set up major provisions, including 255 solar home lights, 21 street lights, 240 biogas plants and 5 woody biomass gasifiers. In 2008-09, 130 biogas plants have been constructed in three villages, a Press release said.
Many initiatives have been undertaken by Tata Steel with the objective to enhance land productivity and water conservation, as agriculture is a major source of livelihood in its areas of operations, which are mainly in the rural belt. These include building of check dams, renovation of ponds and wells. In the last three year, nearly 300 such structures has been formed in the operational areas, which have enabled second and third cropping in over 3300 acres of land in Jharkhand and Orissa, the release said.
Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) have also encouraged plantation among communities and across mines and collieries through and over 52000 saplings were planted in 2008-09. In addition to plantation, awareness raising drives are also conducted among schoolchildren and communities to protect the environment. The company has a specific policy on environmental management which is implemented and monitored through the structured management system — EMS ISO 14001.The EMS at Steel Works was integrated with Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) in 2002.
It has taken several measures in the past for both energy and resource conservation resulting in significant improvement over the years. Various environmental issues, including climate change are being dealt at various levels.
Worldwide, the steel industry contributes more than 2.0 billion tonnes of CO2 to atmosphere which is likely to impact the climate. Besides, there is continuous addition of heat, waste gases, slag, dust, sludge and other pollutants in the surrounding environment of a steel plant.
Tata Steel had recognised the climate change issues in early nineties and started to modernise and augment its production facilities to improve the energy efficiencies and thereby mitigating the GHG emission reduction. Tata Steel Works at Jamshedpur has reduced the carbon-dioxide emission by 36 % in last 12 years. This has been possible by phasing out of old and inefficient facilities, adoption of modern energy efficient equipment and processes, improving the by-product fuel recovery and usage, waste heat recovery etc.
Tata Steel is actively participating in the international climate change initiatives taken by World Steel Association formerly known as International Iron & Steel Institute (IISI) and Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APPCDC). Tata Steel is currently working on more than 17 Clean Development Mechanics (CDM) projects with M/s. Ernst & Young. The combined potential of these projects is a reduction of 2 million tonnes of CO2/year.
Besides climate change, other important focus areas of environment management are resource conservations, prevention of pollution and solid waste management. Adoption and absorption of state-of-the-art energy efficient technologies, fundamental changes in the operating philosophy and installation of pollution control equipment at every stage to minimise the environmental burdens.
