In the context of sustainability, governance encompasses ensuring ethical and transparent business conduct, addressing sustainability risks and opportunities and aligning with robust disclosure requirements under the aegis of the board. At the Tata group, the Tata Code of Conduct is the bedrock of our businesses and serves as the ethical roadmap for companies and employees.

Tata group is also ensuring that sustainability is firmly on the agenda of Boards. We are actively working in making our Boards proficient in sustainability, ensuring adequate Board oversight of sustainability strategies of our companies by asking management the right questions and adopting global sustainability frameworks to disclose our sustainability performance.

In alignment with one of the commitments of the Tata Sustainability Policy, the Tata Sustainability Group actively engages with companies on ensuring adequate governance of sustainability. While most Tata companies have some form of board oversight on sustainability issues, seven companies have dedicated Sustainability Committees of the Board, mandated to address the risks and opportunities arising from sustainability issues.

While Sustainability as a topic may not be a very new one, its introduction in corporate boardrooms is rather recent. Conscious of this fact, the Tata Sustainability Leadership Programme was designed to help C-suite executives from across Tata group, understand the risks and opportunities posed by the rapidly changing climate and negotiate through the novel, complex problems associated with a changing business landscape. The key objective of the programme is to sensitise the participants regarding environmental, business and social sustainability.

Tata group collaborated with University of Cambridge's Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) to customise this programme and ensure that it was business-relevant, added value to existing work of the participants and provided a sufficient level of challenge to them. Particular attention was given to the different geographical contexts in which the group companies operate and to ensure that individuals had sufficient opportunity to reflect, identify and take ownership of their respective company's sustainability agenda.

Reporting sustainability performance using globally recognized frameworks is one of the commitments of the Tata Sustainability Policy. Over 15 Tata companies have adopted globally recognized frameworks such as GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), IR (Integrated Reporting), CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) and UNGC (United Nations Global Compact) and regularly report their sustainability performance. The Tata Sustainability Group (TSG) continues to assist Tata companies on building reporting capabilities within the group and provides assistance by reviewing the disclosures of companies on a need basis. TSG regularly develops and makes available assessment tools and guidance documents to help companies assess the quality of their reports and enhance their disclosures.