**Lobbying and Trade Associations**
The purpose of our advocacy is to find common ground and act collaboratively with stakeholders. We work with industry, governments, civil society, and consumers at a local, regional, national and international level. We have a robust process to assess and determine the importance of public policy issues.
We closely work with various industry members and trade associations on relevant matters including climate policy positions and have established a structured process of interaction with policymakers, trade associations, and other relevant stakeholders. All our advocacy initiatives are driven in a structured manner in collaboration and consultation with various function-heads and teams such as Operations, Marketing, Sustainability, etc. for interventions on various advocacy issues including sustainability and climate change. The Board and the Sustainability Committee have stewardship over political lobbying activities, providing oversight on our approach and ensuring alignment with the Company's interests and strategic priorities, in accordance with the applicable policies including Policy on Influencing Public and Regulatory Policy, Policy on Business Conduct, and Climate Change Policy. All the issues are communicated and reviewed from the Board and the Sustainability Committee on a half yearly basis.
We work with policymakers, trade associations and various climate-focused membership bodies and stakeholder initiatives and are committed to conducting all our direct and indirect policy lobbying and advocacy work in line with the Paris agreement. Our direct lobbying efforts are aligned with our policies and strategic priorities and goals. We may engage in indirect lobbying through multiple industry organizations and think tanks at local, regional and global level, such as WBCSD, WSA, ISA, CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, etc. We believe in the power of collective action, especially on challenging topics that cannot be tackled alone, including many environmental and social issues. Our membership in any such organization does not imply that we agree with or endorse every position that these groups may take.
We work with the other members to ensure that lobbying, if any, conducted through trade organizations reflects our values and concerns. We engage in climate-related advocacy to encourage the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and consequently, transition towards net zero through government policies and private sector leadership.
We also take part in providing our alignment on topics such as Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Energy Transitions, Carbon Tax and Carbon pricing, Water and Waste Management, Sustainable Mining. We carefully evaluate any misalignment between changed policy positions of trade associations and our own climate position. In case of any misalignment, we ensure that we reserve our right to act as an individual company and transparently communicate our stand to the respective stakeholders.
We have a systematic process to regularly review our involvement in industry and trade organizations including for our involvement with new associations/policy advocacy efforts to assess the relevance of our participation in line with our strategy, which is aligned with the Paris Agreement. The purpose of our advocacy is to find common ground and act collaboratively with stakeholders at all our operational locations.
Following are some of the examples demonstrating our efforts through public policy advocacy:
* We are an active member of World Steel Association wherein we are working on streamlining sustainability reporting and chain of custody approaches in steel sector.
* We participated in task forces established by India's Ministry of Steel to identify action points for green steel production and sustainable development of manufacturing processes with the focus on various aspects such as raw materials, technology, necessary policy support, improved production processes.
* We chair the Sustainability, Energy and Climate Change Committee at Indian Steel Association, wherein we are focusing on issues related to climate change in the India Steel sector and discuss the best practices in steel sector.