Diversity And Inclusion Propel Tata Communications To The Top 5
Tata Communications, formerly Videsh Sanchar Nigam, is a telecommunications company owned by the Tata Group. Today, it has over 7,000 customers, nearly 2,000 direct suppliers and an employee base of 12,000. Last year, the company reported net revenues of Rs 6,225.32 crore and a profit of Rs 962.66 crore. Tata Communications is the one of two telecommunications companies to have secured a spot in the highest rated sustainability companies in India for FY21.
Amur S. Lakshminarayanan, Managing Director and CEO said, “Our GHG emissions reduction will take us a long way in driving shared value for our ecosystem. As supporters of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are focusing on reducing our carbon footprint and dedicating our reach and technology to help our customers transform their businesses while conserving resources and harnessing our digital enablement expertise, to drive community development. We are establishing a position in protecting the environment by reducing our dependencies on natural ecosystems, enhancing our ability to produce goods and services that yield economic, environmental, and social benefits.”
Sustainability performance
During the year, Tata Communications sourced 14 per cent of renewable energy globally, reported energy savings of 4.3 million units and reduced the consumption by 4 per cent as compared to the previous year. The average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of the company’s data centres was 1.82. The top performer for this indicator in the ranking was Wipro, with a PUE of 1.61. One of the initiatives implemented in FY21 to improve data centre efficiency, was Cold Aisle Containment -- a project that is being introduced at VSB, Chennai, Vashi, Mumbai, and GK, Delhi.
The GHG intensity in FY21 saw an improvement of 11 per cent as compared to FY19. With the objective of educating its employees on sustainability in the information and communication technologies sector, Tata Communications has introduced a training e-module on ‘Sustainability and its Business relevance’.
Greening the ecosystem
In FY20, the company carried out a carbon value chain assessment to understand the environmental benefits provided by its low carbon products and solutions for its customers. These products and services were then mapped with Tata Communications’ own operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (direct and indirect). The results of the study showed that the potential GHG emission reductions amounted to nearly 390,000 metric tonnes of CO2e, which is equivalent to estimated carbon savings of three times the emissions produced by operations of Tata Communications during the financial year.
Diversity and inclusion
Tata Communications is a top performer in the sector for its healthy ratio of CEO’s remuneration to that of average workers. The representation of women has grown from 16 per cent in FY14 to 22 per cent in FY21. The new hire diversity was 27.20 per cent. The company has stated that at an entry level, there is wage parity for men and women employees.
Noteworthy among the company’s diversity and inclusion programmes are the Women’s Leadership Development programme and the Global Caregiving Policy. The Life Event Assistance Programme is a digital platform that offers support to employees during critical life events such as parenthood, and ensures their engagement, retention and talent management. To eliminate potential biases in the screening process for new employees, the company uses an AI-enabled tool that masks the gender related information from applicants’ resumes at the time of short-listing by the evaluator.
