UltraTech fosters biodiversity with Miyawaki forests at its units

May 2023 : UltraTech has embraced the concept of ‘Miyawaki forest’ for increasing green cover and nurturing biodiversity in its manufacturing units in India.

The concept of ‘Miyawaki forest’ has gained currency across the world as one the innovative ways to combat climate change and accelerate afforestation. It is a simple concept that involves plantation of two to three trees per square metre with multi fold benefits in the long-term. This plantation approach not only helps lower temperatures in the surrounding areas but also enhances the air quality. More importantly, these Miyawaki forests are self-sustaining and help enrich the biodiversity locally.

Taking a green leaf out of the same, Miyawaki plantations have been implemented with native plant species in three integrated units of UltraTech :

• Bela Cement Works, located in Rewa District of Madhya Pradesh state, has planted over 6000 trees in the unit premises.

• Gujarat Cement Works, located in Amreli district of Gujarat state, has planted over one thousand trees in the vicinity of the unit.

• Vikram Cement Works, located in Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh state has planted 573 trees in the vicinity of the unit.

   

The unit teams started implementing the Miyawaki concept for green cover since 2021have chosen native species for the plantation. The species have also been chosen to provide economic benefit to the local villagers in terms of providing fodder, fuel, fruits, and flowers.

Biodiversity at UltraTech

Our Biodiversity Policy is based on the ‘No Net Loss’ approach. We work towards ensuring that there is no negative impact to biodiversity on account of our operations or projects while also working to enhance biodiversity across our manufacturing operations through proactive interventions.

Since 2017, we have been assessing the biodiversity of all our sites through the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) in collaboration with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Green Future Foundation and Terracon Ecotech Pvt Ltd. We have completed focused biodiversity assessments at 10 of our integrated plants so far. Based on these assessments, biodiversity management plans have been put in place and specific initiatives have been undertaken to regenerate and preserve biodiversity. We are working with local agencies at respective unit level as well for implementation of conservation strategies like tree plantation and butterfly gardens among other interventions as per the recommendations of the assessing agencies. UltraTech is working towards completing biodiversity assessments of all its 23 integrated cement manufacturing units by 2024.