TCS Corporate Sustainability Report 2010-11 - Tata Consultancy ...

Environmental Impact
Being an IT consulting firm, TCS does not consume non-renewable resources nor generate
process wastes and emissions on the same scale as many traditional industries. On the other
hand, the use of Information Technology has helped significantly reduce transmission and
distribution losses, leading to a more efficient and smarter use of the electricity generated
and thus reduce the global emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). TCS thus views the
growing cognizance of the risks of climate change not only as an opportunity to use our
consulting services and green IT methodologies for a greater good, but also as a source
of revenues.
TCS is committed to measure, report and continually improve its overall environmental
performance by optimizing its resource consumption, minimizing its ecological impact and
in line with the precautionary principle espoused by Article 15 of the Rio Declaration,
working to reduce its carbon footprint.
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We have an Environment Policy that guides key activities designed to minimize our
ecological footprint and mitigate the impact of our operations. The pillars of the Policy are:
n Leadership, going beyond mere compliance
n Climate change mitigation through commitment to reduce GHG emissions and
corresponding carbon footprint
n Green Procurement
n Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
n Resource Efficiency
n Green Infrastructure – Green Buildings
n Green IT
All TCS sites are compliant to all relevant environmental laws, acts, rules and guidelines. No
instances of non-compliance to environmental laws and regulations were brought to our
notice in FY 2011.
At TCS, the environmental initiatives are seen as a part of the overall operational
improvement and the expenditure is not tracked separately. Running expenses incurred –
such as, monitoring and measurement costs, investment in energy efficiency projects, fees
paid to the state and central pollution control boards for consents/NOCs, etc. – are met
through operational budgets. Further, green infrastructure changes like setting up of
Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) or incremental cost incurred for green building projects are
counted under the capital expense budget. However, going forward, we intend to start
capturing all relevant environmental expenditure through our existing Management
Information System.
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