ITC Conferred The World Business and Development Award 2012 At The Rio+20 United Nations Summit

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• Publié par: itc-ltd
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• Langue: English

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ITC Conferred The World Business and

Development Award 2012 At The Rio+20 United

Nations Summit

PR Newswire

KOLKATA and RIO DE JANEIRO, June 21, 2012

KOLKATA

and

RIO DE JANEIRO

,

June 21, 2012

/PRNewswire/ --

In a prestigious development for

India

at the Rio+20 United Nations Summit at

Rio de Janeiro

, Indian multi-business conglomerate, ITC Limited, was presented

the 2012 World Business and Development Award for its transformational rural

initiatives in social and farm forestry programmes in

India

.

The only Indian company to receive this honour at the ongoing historic Rio+20

Summit, this award has been instituted by the United Nations Development

Programme (UNDP),the International Chamber of Commerce and the

International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) in partnership with the Netherlands

Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation

Agency and the UN Global Compact. ITC was among 5 large global companies

to win this honour.

Mr. Y C Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC, received the award at a ceremony held at

Rio which was presided over by Helen Clark, Administrator, UNDP; Georg Kell,

Executive Director, UN Global Compact; Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for

International Development Co-operation,

Sweden

; Ben Knapen, Minister for

European Affairs and International Cooperation,

Netherlands

and the CEO of

the IBLF, Clare Melford.

Mr Deveshwar in his acceptance address said, "I receive this award with

humility and pride on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of tribals and poor

farmers whose lives have been transformed by ITC's social and farm forestry

initiative. It gives us tremendous encouragement to witness the global

appreciation for this initiative and this recognition will indeed help us in taking

this initiative to newer heights."

Commenting on the awards, Georg Kell, Executive Director, UN Global

Compact, said, "Congratulations to the winners of the World Business and

Development Awards who have demonstrated that inclusive business models

can generate tremendous positive impact on communities. The UN Global

Compact fully supports sustainable, commercially viable business initiatives that

expand access for low income people to goods and services and improve

livelihoods while generating growth."

Minister Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation,

Sweden

also pointed out that, "Innovation in inclusive business lies at the heart

of the fight against poverty. It creates income possibilities and builds bridges

between business and people living in poverty. Therefore, I am delighted to see

that innovation is a common theme for all the WBDA winners."

ITC's social and farm forestry programmes provides sustainable livelihoods to

rural wasteland owners by helping convert their wastelands into pulpwood

plantations. They are supported by ITC's R&D developed high-yielding, disease

resistant clonal saplings with shorter harvesting cycles. While farm forestry

focuses on farmers owning wastelands, social forestry targets resource-poor

tribals and farmers.

Currently the programmes cover over 125,000 hectares. It has generated over

56 million person-days of employment. Regenerating green cover on this scale

has enabled carbon sequestration making ITC carbon positive for 7 years,

besides improving moisture conservation, groundwater recharge and reducing

erosion.

The international judging panel for this award comprised of global luminaries

such as:

- Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Vice Chairman, UN Global Compact and Chairman of

the Global Compact Foundation, the Innovative Vector Control Consortium and

Hermes Equity Ownership Services

- Jean-Guy Carrier, Secretary General, International Chamber of Commerce

- Lisa Dreier, Director of Food Security and Development Initiatives, World

Economic Forum

USA

- Jane Nelson, Director, Harvard Kennedy School's Corporate Social

Responsibility Initiative and Non Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

- Ted London, Senior Research Fellow, William Davidson Institute (WDI) and

faculty member of University of Michigan's Ross School of Business

- Graham Baxter, Senior Adviser, International Business Leaders Forum

- Susan Chaffin, Head of Business Call to Action Secretariat

- Ying Chen, Director, Beijing Rongzhi Institute of Corporate Social Responsibility

and Vice President, China Enterprise Confederation (CEC)

- Sameer Hajee, Co-founder and CEO, Nuru Energy

- Alan Detheridge, Associate Director of the Partnering Initiative and Board

Member of the Synergos Institute, the International Foundation for Education

and Self-Help, Management Sciences for Health and the Revenue Watch

Institute chaired the judging panel.

About ITC

ITC is one of

India's

foremost private sector companies and a diversified

conglomerate with interests in

consumer goods, hotels, paperboards and

packaging, agri business

and

information technology

. With a market

capitalisation of around

US$ 35 billion

and a turnover of nearly

US$ 7 billion

,

ITC has been rated among the World's Best Big Companies,

Asia's

'Fab 50' and

among

India's

Most Valuable Companies by Business Today. It has been ranked

as the world's 6th largest 'sustainable value creator' among consumer goods

companies globally, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group

(BCG).

ITC is the only enterprise in the world

, of its dimensions, to be

carbon-

positive

(7 years in a row)

,

sequestering twice the amount of carbon it emits

;

water-positive

(10 consecutive years)

,

creating over 2 times more rainwater

harvesting potential than that consumed by the group; and is

solidwaste

recycling positive

(for the last 5 years). ITC's businesses help in generating

more than

5 million livelihoods

across value chains that touch the lives of

many who live at the margin in rural

India

. For more information, visit

www.itcportal.com

Primary Media Contact: Nazeeb Arif, [e-mail], 91-33-22880339

Secondary Media Contact: Nandini Basu, [e-mail], 91-33-22882348