On January 24, famed short-seller Hindenburg Research published the now infamous report on alleged massive fraud at the Adani Group. The conglomerate is run by Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man (at the time of writing). The Indian company’s response offers an intriguing look into its ESG efforts.
Hindenburg’s report, “Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History,” asked 88 questions about the Adani Group.
On January 29, the Adani Group issued a 413-page document in response. Included in that response was extensive coverage of the Adani Group’s ESG efforts.
Here are some ESG highlights from the report:
The Adani Group is committed to ESG.
Adani Portfolio companies are fully committed to ESG aspects and have a robust ESG framework and glide path in place, which is focused on assurance framework.
. . .
Additionally, we have improved our Governance standards to align it with Global Best practices. We have already constituted a Corporate Responsibility Committee (consisting of 100% independent directors) in all of our portfolio companies which does the review of the ESG progress and framework alignment with progress of the same
Governance is important to the Adani Group.
At the heart of the Adani governance commitment is a one tier Board system with Board of Directors possessing a disciplined orientation and distinctive priorities. Our robust governance structure is based on well-structured policies and procedures that are the backbone of our governance philosophy. Our policies are formulated to ensure business continuity and to maintain a high quality throughout our operations. Board of Directors are the highest authority for the governance and the custodian who push our businesses in the right direction. They provide the overall strategic insights and guidance to our business operations. Our governance framework reflects our value system and is built to boost our governance mechanisms.
The Adani Group Board has ESG Committees.
To ensure the effectiveness of corporate governance and that all our operations are well-governed, the Board has established sub-committees that supervise various business functions.
Adani Group board members are ESG trained.
The Board members are periodically upskilled on emerging risks and trends, including ESG related risks and opportunities.
Here’s a list of some of the ESG credentials from the Adani Group.
Below is a short summary of the ESG credentials.
ESG Awards the Adani Group has won:
– The Climate Action Program (CAP) 2.0° “Oriented Award” by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the Energy, Mining and Heavy Manufacturing category.
– The ‘Global Sustainability Leadership Award’ in ‘Best Sustainable Strategies – Power Industry’ category from World Sustainability recently in Mauritius.
– The Sustainability 4.0 Award Conferred Jointly by Frost and Sullivan and TERI
– The ‘Leaders Award’ and ‘Sustainability Front Runner’ under the ‘Mega large business’ category
– Awarded from Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) for Sustainable Mining for Parsa East & Kente Basin Coal Mine.
– The ‘Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award’ for the year 2022 for using ETP waste chemical sludge as raw material in other organizations.
– The Greentech Award 2022 for outstanding performance in environment and sustainability category.
– The Economic Times Biggest Initiative on the Gas Sector, ET Energyworld Annual Gas Conclave, facilitated Adani Total as Limited for the Category “ES initiative of the year” for Greenmosphere – Low Carbon society.
– Two OSH India Awards; One is Safety & Excellence Award – for saving lives of the truck drivers and second is on Environment Management – for various environmental initiatives
The Adani Group has many ESG-related policies.
The Adani Portfolio listed entities have adopted the following governance policies to enhance transparency and accountability across the organization:
The Adani Group hired experts like Grant Thornton, Moody’s, and Latham & Watkins.
In order to put in place and continually raise the governance standards of Adani portfolio entities and to equip all directors and management with global perspective and ingrain industry best practices, we regularly invite leading sector experts to share their valuable inputs with directors and the management. For example, we have organized sessions with Grant Thornton for financial reporting, with Moody’s for their valuable inputs on ratings and with Latham & Watkins on ESG.
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