Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Vedanta Resources is actively engaged on science-aligned climate policy, with a mixture of positive and oppositional positions. The company's top-line messaging on climate change is positive, however it appears unsupportive of the energy transition and has actively advocated a sustained role for fossil fuels, including coal, in India’s energy mix.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Vedanta Resources has mostly positive top-line messaging on climate change. The company has consistently supported India’s target to reach net zero emissions by 2070, such as on its ‘Climate Change’ webpage, accessed July 2025. In its 2024-25 Sustainability Report, published June 2025, the company acknowledged India’s participation in COP26 and the UNFCCC process, but did not take a clear position. The company does not appear to have taken a position on the need for climate regulation to respond to climate change in the last two years.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Vedanta Resources appears to have limited transparent engagement with climate-related policies. In the company’s 2024-25 Sustainability Report, published June 2025, the company supported resource efficiency, but did not take a position on legislation to mandate this. In the same report, the company acknowledged but did not take a position on India's renewable energy targets of achieving 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030.
In a January 2025 Mercom India article, the company’s subsidiary, Vedanta Aluminium called for the introduction of ‘clear, sector-specific’ renewable energy targets, alongside financial incentives. While the company supported renewable energy policy in its 2023 CDP response, it specified support for market-based policy, such as a policy framework for power purchase agreements. Additionally, Vedanta Aluminium broadly supported emissions trading in its January 2025 interview with Mercom India.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Vedanta Resources appears to be actively engaged on the energy transition, consistently advocating for policy measures toward the unabated exploration and production of oil and gas in India. For example, Chairman Anil Agarwal supported the Oilfield (Regulatory and Development) Amendment bill in a March 2025 LinkedIn post, which reduces barriers to oil and gas exploration and production in India. In an April 2025 press release from subsidiary Cairn Oil & Gas, the company highlighted the ‘untapped potential’ of oil and gas resources in India.
According to an August 2023 OCCRP Report, Vedanta Resources covertly advocated to weaken key environmental regulations in India during the COVID-19 pandemic, successfully engendering the scrapping of various safeguards which protected citizens in the face of expansionary oil exploration projects. The report’s findings are backed up by respective letters to Indian government ministers from both, the company’s chairman, Anil Agarwal, and the company’s CEO, Sunil Duggal, from January and June 2021.
The company also consistently recognizes a role for critical minerals in energy transition supply chains, including electric vehicles, without clarifying support for the energy transition itself in line with IPCC recommendations. Examples include Chairman Anil Agarwal’s January 2025 article for the World Economic Forum, alongside June and May 2025 press releases.
Industry Association Governance: Vedanta Resources has disclosed a complete list of its industry association memberships in its 2023-24 Sustainability Report, published in June 2024, but gave no further details of the organizations’ climate policy positions or the company’s role within them. Vedanta Resources has not published a review of alignment with its industry associations. Vedanta Resources holds membership to the Minerals Council South Africa (SA), where the CEOs of subsidiaries Vedanta Zinc International and Vedanta Base Metals are on the board; Minerals Council SA engages negatively on climate policy in South Africa. In India, Vedanta Resources holds memberships to various groups, including the Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q3 2025.