Saving the future one drop at a time

A large part of our culture here at Tata Motors involves taking steps towards creating a better environment. A few of these steps involve measures to conserve water and energy, reduce emissions, and increase our country’s green cover.  Over the years the effects of climate change have become more prominent, and hence we have fervently taken to save the environment.  For two consecutive years, India has received lesser than average monsoons which has affected close to 330 million people. This has resulted in an acute drought in some parts of the country. Today as a water-stressed nation, it falls upon every individual to take measures in order to save water in every way possible. Against this background, we at Tata Motors, guided by our Environmental Policy, Climate Change Policy and Environmental Procurement Policy, have focused on creating a better environment through several well-thought-out plans and schemes.

Our manufacturing plants are located at Jamshedpur, Lucknow, Pantnagar, Pune, Sanand and Dharwad. At these plants, we have several key water conservation programs, one of which aims at increasing water use efficiency. In order to achieve this, we made a few changes like:

• Modifying the pre-treatment line of Paint Shops to minimize drag-out and carryover which eliminates contamination of bath solutions, thereby increasing the frequency of bath discards as well as fresh-water top-up.
• Placing a station-wise water use mapping to pin-point delivery at desired pressure and quantity. This enables us to save tremendous amounts of water. We have also identified underground water leakages.
• Another approach to this is by raising the water distribution network above the ground, which almost eliminates the chance of leakages.

At present, India captures only eight per cent of its annual rainfall. We at Tata Motors, have realized the importance of rainwater harvesting and hence, have created large artificial lakes where the runoff rainwater from our plants is collected. To further this initiative, at every plant we have taken a few measures:

• At Dharwad, such lakes are crucial to our water requirements as the piped water supply and groundwater sources are scarce and unreliable. These lakes augment our water supply at Jamshedpur and Sanand too whereas at Lucknow these lakes serve as ground water re-charging structures.
• Owing to the water bodies set up at various plants, they have become wetland habitats and serve as a safe habitat for many indigenous and migratory birds. The green-belt developed in the areas surrounding these water bodies also host a wide variety of local biodiversity.
• We also staunchly believe in recycling water. Infrastructure for tertiary treatment of treated effluent is in place to comply with ‘Zero Liquid Discharge’ conditions where applicable. These effluent re-cycling facilities provide permeate which is blended with process water for re-use in the manufacturing process.

We are taking small steps to save our planet and we’re taking them fast. Through our efforts, a total of 9, 82,152 m3 of water was conserved in FY’19, which amounts to 13.8% of total water consumption and 3,27,616 m3 of water in FY’20. Lastly, we are proud to say that all our sites have obtained CII-GreenCo Rating, and 2 plants have achieved Platinum rating in FY 2018-19.