CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD) is one of CII’s 9 centres of excellence.

CESD is a not for-profit, industry-led institution that helps business become sustainable organisations. It
is on a mission to catalyse innovative ideas and solutions, in India, and globally, to enable business, and
its stakeholders, in sustainable value creation. It’s knowledge, action and recognition activities enable
companies to be future ready, improve footprints profiles, and advocate policymakers and legislators to
improve standards of sustainable business through domestic and global policy interventions. CESD
leverages its role of all-inclusive ecosystem player, partnering industry, government, and civil society. It
has been a pioneer of Climate Change, environment management systems, biodiversity mapping,
sustainability reporting, integrated reporting, and social & natural capital valuation in India, thus
upgrading business in India to sustainable competitiveness. With three locations in India, CESD operates
across the country and has also been active in parts of South and South-East Asia, Middle East, and
Africa. It has held institutional partnerships and memberships of the United Nations Global Compact,
Global Reporting Initiative, International Integrated Reporting Council, Carbon Disclosure Project,
development agencies of Canada, the USA, the UK, and Germany.

www.sustainabledevelopment.in
CII-ITC CESD Service portfolio with business and
government on various sustainability issues
CII-ITC Sustainability Awards
CII-ITC Sustainability Awards, recognise and reward excellence in businesses that are seeking ways to
be more sustainable and inclusive in their activities. The Awards are a part of the continued efforts of
Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD) to create awareness on sustainability
practices and to create capacities in business.

Following are the Award categories under which the companies apply

 Corporate Excellence
 Domain Excellence (Environment Management, Corporate Social Responsibility and
Biodiversity).
Sustainability Summit
The Sustainability Summit is an annual flagship event of CII. The Summit was conceptualized and
launched in the year 2006 to enhance industry responsiveness and awareness among other stakeholders
on this significant subject of Sustainable Development.
Management Systems

Lead Auditor EnMS Training-These 5-days interactive training focuses on an in-depth review of the ISO
50001:2018, ISO 19011:2011 and ISO 17021-1:2015. This training program provides participants with
the necessary knowledge to support their organization in achieving compliance to update their
knowledge to ISO 50001:2018 and competence to plan, conduct and report first party and second party
audits.
Lead Auditor EHSMS Training- The 5-day course to equip participants with the auditing skills to
organize, manage and conduct Environment, Health & Safety management systems audit as per
international standards (ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018).
NABET (QCI) accredited training of SHE (Safety, health and Environment) Statutory Compliance-This is
a 3-day course to equip participants with the Safety, Health and Environment legislations & obligations
on the part of the organization. It also focuses on the audit objectives and requirements in line with the
standards IS 15793 (Managing Environment, Occupational Health and Safety Legal Compliance -
Requirements of Good Practices) & IS 14489 (Code of Practice on Occupational Safety and Health Audit).
Waste Management Rules and their amendments Training-This one-day course focuses on the
importance of Waste Management, various Acts and Rules & the amendments therein, being notified by
the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change for the better understanding of the compliance
obligations required by the corporates.
GHG emission reduction accounting trainings-The Training on ISO 14064 covers during the course
include Design and Development of Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory; Quantification of GHG
Emissions; Preparation of Green House Gas Emission Inventory Report; Development of Greenhouse Gas
Emission Reduction Project, Guidance for validation and verification of GHG assertions.
Climate Change
The Climate Change Council spearheads policy advocacy with the government on climate change. The
council meets three times in a year to discuss issues which are most relevant for industry with respect to
Climate Change. The council forms working group to work on multiple areas and to bring out concrete
actions.

Climate Action Programme 2.0° (CAP 2.0°)

CAP 2.0° Award is a recognition and capability enhancement programme for businesses to become
Climate Resilient. Three-Dimensional methodology which includes business excellence, climate maturity
model and climate change activity model is used to assess businesses for their action through
adaptation or mitigation on climate change. Businesses who apply for CAP 2.00 Award are assessed by
assessors trained by CII based on the methodology and the indicators on climate action. CAP 2.00 is an
annual award program, companies can apply sector wise and as per their revenue turnover.

1st Climate Leadership Conference & Cap 2.0° Awards Ceremony, a unique event, was organized for the
first time in India 1 August 2019 to showcase India’s leadership on climate actions. This conference
brought together thought-provoking leaders, scholars and corporate professionals to demonstrate
commitment and implement actions towards a resilient economy against climate change impacts.
Circular Economy & Resource Efficiency
Recognizing the importance of data-backed policy making, CESD completed a study on Resource
Efficiency Steel and Paper Sectors: Evaluating the Potential for Circular Economy. The objective of this is
to evaluate the potential for RE/ CE and its benefit to Climate Change mitigation. CESD has used a
systems-based Material Flow Analysis (MFA) tool to identify scope for RE and CE in the steel and paper
sector. The project used a combination of first-hand data collection from manufacturing units, secondary
data collection and interaction with relevant industry stakeholders (from the two sectors).

The Un-plastic Collective

The Un-Plastic Collective (UPC) is a voluntary, multi-

stakeholder initiative to eliminate plastic pollution in
nature and move towards a circular economy, where no
materials are wasted, through corporate commitments,
translating into meaningful and measurable action. The
Collective was launched by UN Environment Program-
India, CESD and WWF-India at the 14th Sustainability
Summit. CESD released a report titled "The Un-Plastic
Strategy", that summarizes the scale of the impacts of
plastics and provides businesses a strategy to combat
the issue. The report details a step by step guide for
businesses to manage plastics and provides a
framework to prioritize action based on business,
financial, social and environmental impact.

As part of this companies set time-bound, public targets

to:
• Eliminate unnecessary use of plastic
• Reuse and circulate plastics through the economy •
Replace with sustainable alternative or recycled plastics
• Turn commitments to meaningful, measurable action
• Implement EPR and improvements in materials
management and recovery
• Undertake plastic incentivisation, baseline assessment
Corporate Reporting

With a purpose of future-proofing organizations, CESD provides end to end services to companies and
large corporations for communicating sustainability performance and impacts. It handholds
organizations to review Sustainability Strategy, identify key material issues; facilitate Stakeholder
engagement, and design, plan and write reports in full compliance with internationally accepted
guidelines and principles- IR, GRI, CDP, BRR. CESD specialises in helping companies develop
Sustainability policies, internal processes and frameworks to facilitate Sustainable business. Our focus is
on providing clients with progressive service offerings that are tailored to their requirements based on
their demography, sector, and recent global cues.

Climate change
✓ Corporate GHG Inventory Preparation and preparing low carbon development roadmap
✓ Climate Change Risk Assessment and action strategy on Adaptation projects
✓ Climate Change Strategy and implementation (TCFD, SBT and ICP)
✓ Carbon Sequestration study

Corporate Social Responsibility

CESD helps companies with CSR advisory and consulting services. We undertake needs identification,
baseline, impact measurement, Social Return on Investment and Human Development Index studies.
The pre and post studies provide vital inputs to CSR strategy, project design, revamp implementation
plan and measure the effectiveness of CSR projects. We also assist companies in benchmark CSR
portfolio, customised NGO assessment and recognise best practices in CSR.
Tools for mainstreaming biodiversity in business
India Business and Biodiversity initiative (IBBI) is a business-led initiative of CII CESD that serves as a
national platform for business, to promote sharing and learning, and will ultimately lead to
mainstreaming sustainable management of biological diversity by business. It guides and mentors
business organizations in India on conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
IBBI works with its member companies by providing necessary advocacy services, capacity building and
recognition. It is building capacity of businesses to understand its impacts and dependencies on
ecosystem services by providing consulting services and training. Recognition is provided by releasing
publications on efforts taken by industries to conserve biodiversity and awards which will be started
next year to encourage companies who are working at their site or surrounding to conserve biodiversity
and implemented methods for sustainable use of natural resources.

CESD brought out a publication on – Investing in Biodiversity for Building Resilient Businesses- Case
Studies from Indian Industry. The publication highlights how many Indian industries have invested in
biodiversity and are able to showcase both economic and non-economic benefits to their business.
Though biodiversity conservation cannot be dependent only on business cases for industry, however,
with such voluntary innovative exercises, a momentum towards biodiversity conservation can be
achieved and Indian industry can become better environment steward globally.

Human Rights Business for Human Rights (Biz4HR)

Initiative is an action group of stakeholders interested in improving Human Rights record. Companies
signing up for the initiative commit to improve Human Rights (HR) awareness among business and
strengthen processes & performance. Signatory companies become members for three years and are
provided various advisory services such as:
✓ HR policy development/review 8
✓ HR preparedness assessment
✓ Designing of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD)
✓ HR reporting as per UNGP reporting framework
Cleaner Air Better Life
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) initiated the 'Cleaner Air - Better life' program in 2016,
acknowledging the role of the Indian Industry as one of the factors influencing the quality of air.
The vision was to provide cleaner air and a better quality of life to every Indian citizen by
involving industry leaders to take concrete steps to curb this menace. In 2019, the 'Cleaner Air -
Better life' initiative was upgraded by CII as a Nation al Initiative.
CII partnered with NITI Aayog to bring diverse stakeholders across Delhi National Capital
Region's airshed together through years 2017 and 2018 in order to design action plans for four
key sources of air pollution. Further to demonstrate and scale actionable solutions for crop
residue burning, CII galvanised industry action across Punjab and Haryana.

‘India CEO Forum on Air Pollution’ was launched in July 2019 to accelerate clean air action. The forum
creates awareness about the role industry plays in impacting the environment and what it needs to do to
balance economic growth with sustainable practices.