Inclusivity, through
growth for all
Through our responsible business strategy, we foster wide-ranging transformation in ACC and the communities in which we operate. We closely collaborate with employees, partners, and stakeholders for shared value creation.
COVID-19 relief
beneficiaries
Total Boots on Ground (BoG) hours conducted at manufacturing sites
We aim to use our reach and influence to grow our positive impact. We are committed to creating inclusive, sustainable and empowering workplaces where employees can reach their potential. Our community initiatives are designed to enable community members to live a better and fulfilling life.
We aim to build more capable, inclusive and resilient communities through a shared approach that takes into cognisance the specific needs of each community. Our social strategy aligns with our core business strategy to empower communities and provide opportunities for us to create common value across our footprint.
ACC TRUST is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of ACC, committed to fuelling the development of communities around ACC’s business presence. Its initiatives are focused on our key impact areas—DISHA (Sustainable Livelihood), VIDYA UTKARSH (Quality Education) and WASH (Water, Sanitation, Health & Hygiene).
STRATEGIC FOCUS AREAS
MATERIAL ISSUES ADDRESSED
SDGs IMPACTED
During the year, our community development projects touched more than 8.30 Lakh people, residing in 166 villages and 15 municipal areas in the vicinity of our plants. We undertook major interventions and projects to provide quality education, sustainable livelihood and WASH.
Lives touched
Schools supported for quality education
Government schools equipped with e-learning systems
Children supported through Anganwadis
Lives touched
Youth benefitted through employability-linked skill training
Women empowered through Self Help Groups (SHGs)
Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) made operational
Savings and bank loan mobilised through SHGs
Lives touched
Water harvesting structures erected
People covered through safe drinking water projects
Villages supported for achieving Open Defecation Free (ODF) status
People reached through health camps
People benefitted through solid waste management projects
People combated HIV/AIDS through ART/STI centres
Children benefitted through
Anganwadi centres
‘POSHAN Abhiyaan’ to make India malnutrition free by 2022
ACC TRUST has been playing an active role in ‘POSHAN Abhiyaan’, a flagship programme of the Government of India, to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers and achieve the goal to make India malnutrition free by 2022. The TRUST is working closely on 14 Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) projects around our manufacturing units. Among the steps undertaken under the Malnutrition Eradication Project is closely working with government health workers to create Model Anganwadi Centres (Childcare Centres) around our plants, benefiting ~30,000 children (under six years), adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women.
Rainwater harvesting
structures created
Water positivity
the risk of water scarcity in the communities, ACC TRUST designed a programme Low External Inputs for Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) and Sanrakshit Paryavaran. These programmes include interventions towards water conservation and also stress on the importance of water management. In partnership with community members, the government’s irrigation department and civil society organisations, ACC TRUST took several steps to ensure that lives and livelihoods in surrounding communities flourish. In 2020, ACC TRUST undertook various projects such as construction of check dams, renovation and pond desiltation activities.
At ACC, we stepped up our efforts to protect and support communities in the wake of the sudden outbreak of the pandemic. Across large parts of the country, we focused on multiple initiatives: from distributing food and provisions, to disinfecting rural areas; from facilitating the production of cotton masks to educating people on the need for social distancing, washing hands and maintaining respiratory hygiene.
As the outbreak continued to intensify, India faced an acute dearth of face masks. ACC TRUST engaged its associate SHGs across its countrywide network to produce cotton masks.
Cotton masks produced and distributed
Lives and livelihoods of migrant workers living away from their families, were severely impacted as India imposed one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world. ACC provided fuel wood to brick kiln labourers stuck in Medersara village in Chhattisgarh and collaborated with the local gram panchayat to make food arrangements for these labourers.
The nationwide lockdown on account of COVID-19 and absence of daily wages badly affected workers at Wadi in Karnataka’s Gulbarga district, forcing them to take shelter in public areas having insufficient basic facilities. During the quarantine period, our volunteers provided food and provisions as well as basic necessities.
Packets of cooked food distributed
Packets of foodgrains distributed
ACC and Ambuja Cements together contributed `3.30 Crore to three NGOs - Goonj, Praja Foundation and Mumbai Roti Bank, to support daily wage earners and migrant labourers trapped due to the lockdown, with food and ration kits. Our volunteers also distributed food and provisions to such migrants in areas near our operations.
The COVID-19 induced lockdown disturbed lives in many villages of India. This also included the largest village of Himachal Pradesh-Dehlan-with a population of over 13,000 inhabitants. ACC TRUST tied up with the local village authorities of Dehlan to sanitise the entire village comprising ~250 households.
People benefited through sanitisation drives
At Khushberiya and Simatand villages in Sindri, Jharkhand, our volunteers used microphones to educate people about COVID-19 and social distancing.
People educated about social distancing
Dungri Gram Panchayat is one of the remotest areas of Bargarh district (Odisha). There is a single bank named Utkal Gramya Bank, which caters banking services to 10,000 people. The nearest SBI branch is at Ambabhona Block headquarter, 20 kms from Dungri village.
Read MoreAt ACC, we offer our teams a defined talent value proposition to enrich and fulfil their aspirations so that they can realise their true potential to ‘make a difference’.
Our values underpin our commitment to be an equal opportunity employer that ensures respect, dignity, fairness and human rights for all our members. ACC is committed to:
Our people matter to us. We empower them and they empower the business. We are always learning, and this process helps our teams to deliver better, faster and accelerate their professional development.
The team worked on a few employee learning engagement levers to help employees stay anchored to learning during the pandemic.
Building a common cause and purpose for learning during the pandemic: The Business Resilience Team (BRT) was constituted to direct, guide and monitor the organisation during the pandemic with regard to employee well-being, health and safety. It was with the BRT inputs that the ACC-Ambuja Leadership Academy (AALA) started some of its first outreach programmes to establish a meaningful connect with the employees.
Building internal championship, volunteership and encouraging internal experts: AALA partnered with over 200 internal experts to build various large business sessions. During the year, 94% of the programmes conducted were created in-house.
An inclusive approach to learning: AALA took a step further during the lockdown by opening 90% of its large webinar sessions to employees across the organisation. Employees across different levels, functions and locations could register for a topic of their choice. Senior leaders, team leaders and individual contributors could participate in the learning programmes. The topics and the themes drove the audience – not their designation.
Learning format: One of the key drivers of success was the simple and intuitive approach that the team called the Learning Model or Learning Format. This model proved to be critical for effective employee engagement through learning during the lockdown.
STRATEGIC FOCUS AREAS
MATERIAL ISSUES ADDRESSED
SDGs IMPACTED
AALA leveraged technology and crafted its bespoke programmes in the following three formats:
E-learning modules: Videos were also used to complement training done through the above three formats. The entire learning format was housed on Super Assisted Intelligent Learning (SAIL), the in-house LXP platform.
When AALA introduced SAIL – a learning experience platform in 2019, it gave the Learning and Development (L&D) team a lot of insights into individual-driven learning. The team learnt that technology had to adapt to the learner and not the other way around, paving the way for the utilisation of SAIL during the pandemic.
The AALA learning experience platform was unique in a way that it could be owned by every function, department and team. Teams could also have their own coaches through the platform with whom they connect.
Area-wise Learning (%)
AALA used SAIL to complement all the earlier-mentioned formats of learning in the following manner:
Total ACC people logged in SAIL
Total ACC learning hours in SAIL
Contents created/ uploaded on SAIL
In-house courses/ e-modules created at no cost
No. of ACC employees participated in webinars
Total sessions
Total topics covered
Total internal/ external faculty involved
Different strokes for different folks: Other learning engagement initiatives
In addition to hosting various learning options, AALA also provided other learning-oriented services:
We foster a culture of open communication, which drives understanding of the needs of our employees while enabling them to acquire the information and skills needed to deliver on our strategy.
‘Pratibha Ke Rang’ was a great platform for all our employees and their family members to showcase their diverse talent in photography, drawing and performing arts to a wider audience. With the help of digital technology, the spectacular event turned out to be a resounding success.
We implement employee health and well-being programmes, providing incentives, tools, social support and strategies on physical and mental health.
The programmes mentioned below help our employees maintain health and general well-being:
At ACC, Health & Safety (H&S) is a core value and our declared ambition is to achieve zero harm in our operations. The culture of H&S is driven by our employees at every level, as we work to achieve our common goal that – Every Employees should go Back Home Safely Every Day.
Health and Safety Improvement Plan (HSIP) was developed for the year 2020 to further improve Leadership involvement in H&S. Specific actions were executed to ensure health management, risk management, Lock out Tag out and Try out (LOTOTO), and road safety. During the year, we implemented several leading measures to improve our H&S performance, including the following:
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR)
Fatalities
Lost Time Injury (LTI)
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR)
We achieved significant progress in road safety with focus on skill development and driving behaviour management. By leveraging technology, data analytics and assessment of capabilities of drivers, we achieved 60% decline in offsite incidents against 2019.
Key achievements
Of total kms by approved driver
Of total kms moved by iVMS fleet
safe kms driven
Vidyasarathi Scholarship scheme launched through ACC TRUST, which benefited over 50 truck driver’s children to pursue higher education.
Offsite Incidents (No.)
Offsite Injuries (No.)
Improvement in safe kilometres driven (%)
We undertake various initiatives to empower, educate and engage with our stakeholders, to continue cementing relationships with them.
Initiatives
New Gold Water Shield Campaign: Takes forward the last year’s mother brand campaign that portrayed the process of home-building and the different stages involved in it. The film focuses on the unique value proposition (water repellency) of Gold Water Cement to help consumer find a solution to the problem of leakage and dampness through the use of our premium product offering
Kamaal Ki Kahani: ACC Kamaal Ki Kahani is a video series chronicling real-life motivational stories of resilience to engage with consumers
Kamaal Ki Baat: A knowledge series where experts from construction and building industry share their learnings, experiences and key expertise with our influencer segments
Kamaal Ka Sawaal: An engaging series on social media to provide construction-related knowledge to our stakeholders
Newsletters/Journals
ACC Sambandh: It is a bi-monthly digital channel partner newsletter, published in six regional languages. This is a relationship building tool that celebrates excellence of our channel partners, and provides them unique insights into ACC’s achievements, new launches, recent innovations and customer service initiatives
Bandhan: It is a monthly contractor newsletter, published in 10 regional languages, engages with the contractor fraternity by sharing inspiring contractor stories, construction tips, and so on
India Concrete Journal: This is a monthly journal published since 1927. It endeavours to present its readership, academia and professionals with contributions that are relevant, contemporary, and forward-looking