We have expanded the list of climate policies we assess company engagement with to incorporate land-use related policy, referring to legislative or regulatory measures to enhance and protect ecosystems and land where carbon is being stored. Assessments under this category are currently underweighted in terms of their contribution to the overall company metrics. This weighting will be progressively increased over the next 6 months.
We adjusted the terminology used to describe the queries running down the left-hand side of our scoring matrix and added additional explanatory text to the info-boxes. This has no impact on the scores and methodology. It has been done following user feedback to improve clarity.
In this section, we depict graphically the relationships the corporation has with trade associations, federations, advocacy groups and other third parties who may be acting on their behalf to influence climate change policy. Each of the columns above represents one relationship the corporation appears to have with such a third party. In these columns, the top, dark section represents the strength of the relationship the corporation has with the influencer. For example if a corporation's senior executive also held a key role in the trade association, we would deem this to be a strong relationship and it would be on the far left of the chart above, with the weaker ones to the right. Click on these grey shaded upper sections for details of these relationships. The middle section contains a link to the organization score details of the influencer concerned, so you can see the details of its climate change policy influence. Click on the middle sections for for details of the trade associations. The lower section contains the organization score of that influencer, the lower the more negatively it is influencing climate policy.
Open PDF file of Data Source
Climate Lobbying Overview: UltraTech Cement appears to be broadly supportive of climate change policy in its top-line communications, but with limited engagement. The company has communicated support for the transition to a low-carbon economy, however, it does not seem to have engaged extensively with specific climate policies.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: UltraTech Cement appears generally supportive of climate change policy in its top-line messaging. In its 2020-21 Sustainability Report, published in July 2021, the company supported the need to limit global temperature rise below the 2°C threshold in line with the Paris Agreement. In an October 2021 tweet, UltraTech Cement also expressed support for net-zero concrete by 2050. However, the company does not appear to have explicitly supported economy-wide emissions reductions in line with IPCC guidance. In its 2021-22 Sustainability Report, published in July 2022, the company’s Managing Director Kumar Mangalam Birla expressed concerns for achieving emissions reductions with respect to economic growth and energy poverty in India. InfluenceMap has been unable to find evidence of UltraTech Cement’s position on the need for climate regulation.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: From 2020-22, UltraTech Cement appears to have had limited transparent engagement with specific climate change policy. In its CDP disclosures from 2018 to 2021, the company has advocated for product standards for low-carbon cement in India. UltraTech Cement also appears to acknowledge the risk of climate regulation, including the introduction of a carbon tax or emissions trading in its 2021-21 Sustainability Report, published in July 2022, but takes no position on either policy measure.
Positioning on Energy Transition: UltraTech Cement does not appear to have a detailed position on the energy transition, however on occasions the company has supported transitioning the energy mix to renewables. For example, in a case study on its corporate website accessed in October 2021, the company’s managing director, Kailash Jhanwar, stated top-line support for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Further, in a June 2022 press release, UltraTech Cement appeared to support “green energy” renewable energy as an enabler for decarbonization, however it is unclear what is included in the scope of green energy.
Industry Association Governance: UltraTech Cement has disclosed a list of its memberships to industry associations in its 2021-22 Annual Report, published in July 2022, but with no further details of the company's role within each organization's governing bodies nor their climate change policy positions. The company has not published a review of alignment with its industry associations. The company is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which has shown mixed and limited engagement on Indian climate change policy.
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 Q1 2023.
Additional Note: UltraTech Cement is headquartered in India, where InfluenceMap’s LobbyMap platform can currently only make a provisional assessment of corporate climate policy engagement, due to limited capability to access publicly available data on this issue. As it is possible that InfluenceMap is not yet able to fully capture evidence of UltraTech Cement's climate policy engagement activities, these scores should be considered provisional at this time.