evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

ITC PSPD Kovai Water Stewardship — Alliance for Water Stewardship Platinum Certification (Coimbatore, India)

India · Coimbatore · See the India profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 64% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

ITC's Kovai paperboard unit became the world's 2nd, and India's 1st, facility to earn AWS Platinum water certification (2019-20), rejuvenating catchment structures to create 1.01M kl of water-harvesting potential and save 8.51M kl for 5,000+ farmers.

1.01 million kilolitres
Water-harvesting potential created (2019-20)
8.51 million kilolitres
Measured water savings (2019-20)
5,000+
Farmers reached
21 consecutive years
PSPD division 'water positive' streak (to FY2022-23)
1.6 million acres
Mission Sunehra Kal watershed programme coverage (across 45 districts, 16 states)
ITC PSPD Kovai Water Stewardship — Alliance for Water Stewardship Platinum Certification (Coimbatore, India) ITC PSPD Kovai Water Stewardship — Alliance for Water Stewardship Platinum Certification (Coimbatore, India)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
ITC Limited — Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division (PSPD), Unit Kovai
Period
2019-present
Keywords
paper & pulp manufacturing, watershed restoration, water harvesting, third-party certification

Context

ITC Limited's Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division (PSPD) operates a paperboard manufacturing unit at Kovai, near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, drawing water from a stream within the Upper Bhawani River Basin — a catchment affected by erratic rainfall, unsustainable withdrawal and declining groundwater levels.

Objectives

Rather than a simple per-hectare cash payment, the programme aims to rejuvenate traditional water-harvesting structures and build new ones across the upstream catchment, supporting local farmers' irrigation and groundwater recharge while securing independently certified water stewardship for the Kovai unit.

Activities

ITC PSPD funds a watershed stewardship programme upstream of its Kovai facility, rejuvenating and constructing water-harvesting structures across the catchment. The unit underwent third-party audit under the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) International Water Stewardship Standard, covering water balance, water quality, shared water-related risks and governance.

Results

In 2019-20 the Kovai unit became the second facility in the world, and the first in India, to achieve AWS Platinum certification. The programme created 1.01 million kilolitres of water-harvesting potential and delivered measured water savings of 8.51 million kilolitres — around eight times the unit's average annual water withdrawal — reaching more than 5,000 farmers. ITC's wider PSPD division, which also runs a similarly AWS-certified unit at Bhadrachalam, Telangana, reports being 'water positive' for 21 consecutive years to FY2022-23, and its national Integrated Watershed Development Programme (Mission Sunehra Kal) covers roughly 1.6 million acres across 45 districts in 16 states.

Conclusions

The Kovai unit's AWS certification and its site-specific water-harvesting and savings figures are backed by independent third-party audit. The company-wide 'water positive' claim and the national watershed-acreage totals, however, are self-reported by ITC and are not broken out with the same level of site-specific, third-party verification.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Funded by ITC PSPD as part of its corporate watershed stewardship and 'water positive' strategy; no public budget figure disclosed for the Kovai-specific programme.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Programme active since at least 2019-20 when Platinum AWS certification was achieved; ongoing as of the latest reporting, part of a wider ITC water strategy already spanning 21 years.
Staffing & skills
ITC PSPD sustainability/CSR team, local farmers and community water-user groups in the Upper Bhawani catchment, Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) third-party auditors

Conditions for success

  • catchment-level cooperation with upstream farmers on shared water-harvesting infrastructure
  • independent AWS audit framework providing external verification
  • integration with the company's longer-running watershed and 'water positive' strategy

Common failure modes

  • national and company-wide claims (water-positive streak, acreage totals) are self-reported and not independently verified at the same level as site-specific AWS figures
  • dependence on sustained corporate CSR funding rather than an independent revenue stream

Where it fits

Governance type
corporate self-regulation with third-party (AWS) certification
Scale
single industrial facility and its upstream catchment
Income level
lower-middle-income (India)

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful