Tizit, Nagaland: Making plywood, but sourcing the wood without causing much harm to the environment. Sounds surprising? This is exactly what Greenply Industries Limited is doing. In an attempt to maintain ecological harmony and ensure zero net deforestation, Greenply is planting more trees than they are cutting for making what they call ‘zero-emission plywood’. Team CSR Journal recently visited Greenply’s Tizit unit in Nagaland to take a look at the company’s sustainability and CSR initiatives.

Project Green Rise

Founded in the late 1980s, Greenply Industries Limited is sourcing almost 97% of their sheets from plantation timber and for this they are actively doing plantation activities. The company believes in responsible timber sourcing as timber constitutes about 70% of their raw material. Currently, they are actively planting saplings near their factory at Nagaland’s Tizit as part of their environment sustainability initiative which they have named ‘Project Green Rise’.

The CSR Journal’s #DeepDive

On The International Day of Forests 2023 The CSR Journal takes a #DeepDive into Greenply Industries Limited’s sustainability initiative ‘Project Green Rise’ at Tizit village in Mon District of North-East Indian state of Nagaland. The Theme of International Day of Forests 2023 is Forests and Health, to highlight the importance of forests in the making of a healthy populace.

Financial benefit to local residents

Tizit is a quaint village Nestled amidst beautiful valleys in Nagaland’d Mon, which is mostly mountains and forest. The company does tree plantation with the help of local tribal people as part of their sustainability and eco restoration drive namely ‘Project Green Rise’. Through this initiative, the plywood manufacturing company is also financially benefiting the local population a lot of who do not have any other source of income.

Over 15 lakh saplings planted

Through their tree plantation drive, Greenply Industries Limited is setting a model of CSR for other wood-based industries. The company is also distributing good quality seedlings of fast growing short rotation tree species with the aim of improving productivity and raising plantations to achieve raw material self sufficiency and its sustained availability in future.

Talking about this initiative, Mr Manoj Tulsian, JMD & CEO, Greenply Industries Limited, shared, “Greenply Industries limited is committed to sustainability and has been actively undertaking mindful actions to address the sustainability doctrine of the company. We engage the local communities of Nagaland for our timber plantation efforts and train them on regular intervals to ensure optimum standard.

So far, we have planted more than 15 lakh samplings of Eucalyptus, Neem And Khokan in an area spanning 3,300 acres. Greenply provides these samplings to the locals of Nagaland with an intention to buy back fully grown trees, for manufacturing plywood. Thus, creating an income stream for these communities as well as producing our own raw material.”

Plantation drive in other states

Apart from Nagaland, Greenply is also undertaking plantation activities at Kriparampur in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas dictrict, Baripada in Odisha and Bamanbore in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district. This is done together with the farming community, who are their major stakeholders. Free training sessions are hosted at regular intervals where the farmers are provided technical knowledge about nursery to post-harvest stage.

Greenply’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Greenply Foundation, the CSR arm of Greenply Industries Limited is taking care primarily of education and healthcare in Tizit, Nagaland where there factory is located. The area lacks basic facilities for healthcare and education. To ensure that the people of Mon district are not deprived of education and health services, Green Ply Industries Limited operates a school and a state-of-the-art Mobile Medical Van (MMV) that visits remote villages providing basic healthcare.

Currently, two teachers are taking care of the education of around 60 children in the district.

The Mobile Medical Van operates in Tizit and its nearby villages located within Mon district. It provides basic diagnostic, medicine, curative, referral and counselling services to the rural population. The initiative is aimed at improving access to medical services in the remote areas and bringing awareness among the community towards healthy and hygienic living.

Team CSR Journal also paid a visit to the pathological laboratory set up by the company in Tizit and a few bus stops the company has made for ease of transport of local residents.

Talking about the company’s CSR initiatives in Nagaland, Mr Tulsian, further said, “Greenply has been consistent in its initiatives to serve the society. In Tizit, we are administrating a school for the locals with the intention of promoting quality education amongst the children. A mobile medical van along with a pathological laboratory is set up inside the manufacturing facility, to facilitate quality healthcare and treatment to the people of Tizit and neighbouring villages. Greenply has always been sincere towards itself responsibility to the society and therefore we are constantly working towards our contribution for the advancement of the community.”

Empowering women

This is not all. For women empowerment and community development, Greenply has been creating large scale employment opportunities in rural areas, particularly for women. The company has undertaken a novel initiative of training females as carpenters and is also providing them work!

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The report has been developed referring to the guidance under the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, highlighting the brand’s sustainability journey through its initiative ‘ESG360’. This is the first sustainability report released by any brand in the Indian wood panel industry, marking a dynamic change in this sector.

As a part of its ESG journey, Greenply will be strengthening its systems and processes in order to generate data and track progress against key performance indicators based on the material topics. Going forward, Greenply will be reporting across the six capitals as per the Value Reporting Foundation which includes manufacturing capital, natural capital, social capital, intellectual capital, financial capital and human capital.

The six capitals model will provide the company with a balanced approach that will not only improve its investment decision-making processes, but also integrate Sustainable Development as a behavior and an aspirational set of goals for the brand.

Speaking on the report launch, Mr. Manoj Tulsian, Joint Managing Director & CEO, Greenply Industries Ltd said, “Sustainability has been embedded in our roots over the years. We take this philosophy ahead as part of our core strategy as we embark on a formal journey with ESG initiative while we grow responsibly. With ‘ESG360’, Greenply has already started cultivating a business strategy that confers due respect to people and the planet. We are very optimistic that this sustainability report is a foundation stone for all our endeavors towards transforming into a progressively sustainable and resilient organization in the years to come.”

Led by a sustainability-oriented approach, Greenply has been undertaking extensive plantation activities over the past several decades leading to responsible procurement of raw materials. Besides environmental protection, the plantation activity helps maintain the financial viability of the ecosystem as it generates employment for the local inhabitants too.

Greenply has also attained the FSC® – FM (Forest Management) Certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) for its sustainable plantation unit located in Tizit, Nagaland, and is the first company to have successfully achieved this certification in the interior infrastructure segment in India. To date, Greenply has planted around 19.5 million saplings covering an area nearly of 24,500 acres of plantation.

Greenply strives to be a net zero-waste company. The Company consumes all the waste products as fuel in the boilers, for example: wood chips formed during the plywood manufacturing process are used for energy generation. Even the wastewater from the production is channeled into the reservoirs that provide water for sprinklers, helping to replenish the ground water table. Greenply has been undertaking activities to reduce emissions and move towards renewable energy generation. Rooftop Solar panels are installed at all the manufacturing facilities for the generation of green energy.

Additionally, electric vehicles and EV forklift are deployed for inhouse transportation needs. The company is the first one in the wood & panel industry to introduce a range of Zero Emission (E-0) products keeping in mind the health interest of its consumers by reducing formaldehyde emission to negligible or equal to zero, thus safeguarding the indoor air quality.

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