KOLKATA, India, December 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ITC Ltd ranked 2nd among top companies in India and 7th in Asia in the first of its kind Asian Sustainability Rating (ASR(TM)) released by CSR Asia recently.

The ASR(TM) is CSR Asia's proprietary research, which ranks the 200 largest listed companies in ten markets operating in Asia Pacific on their sustainability disclosure. The ten countries included in the ASR(TM) are: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

In a world where transparency and accountability are increasingly important, this is the first Asian based analysis of the largest companies in the region, allowing investors and other stakeholders to understand the economic, social and governance activities of listed companies. 51 indicators were used to score each of the companies under six indicator section headings which included Governance and Policy; Strategy and Communication; Marketplace and Supply chain, Workplace and people, Environment & Community and Development.

ITC's extensive Sustainability initiatives have contributed to creating livelihoods for more than 5 million people. These endeavours are exemplified in large scale projects such as the ITC e-Choupal initiative which empowers 4 million farmers, its social and farm forestry programme that covers over 100,000 hectares and integrated watershed development projects that provide irrigation to over 47,000 hectares. ITC's initiatives in the catchment areas of its operations also include the creation of sustainable livelihoods through programmes such as animal husbandry covering over 3,00,000 lakh milch animals. ITC's supplementary education programme has benefited over 2,00,000 lakh children and the Company's women empowerment initiative has helped in creating over 20,000 rural women entrepreneurs.

The Company's strategic choice to achieve triple bottom line performance has also enabled it to become the only company in the world of its size to be `Carbon positive' sequestering twice the carbon it emits, Water positive' harvesting two times more rainwater than its net consumption and Solid waste recycling positive.

The Asian Sustainability Rating details are available at : http://www.asiansr.com/c_india.php

For details on ITC's Sustainability Initiatives, log on to : http://www.itcportal.com

Contacts: Mr Nazeeb Arif, Vice President-Corporate Communications ITC Ltd +91-(0)33-22880329

SOURCE ITC LIMITED

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