What are the material issues the company has identified?  

In its 2021-22 Sustainability Report AEL identified a range of material issues, such as energy and emissions management, customer satisfaction, climate change adaptation and mitigation, health, safety, and well-being. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for AEL.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards   

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups AEL engages with:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Employees	·      Employee engagement survey ·      Town-Hall meetings ·      Performance appraisal reviews ·      Training programme ·      Intranet portal, in-house newsletters ·      Rewards and recognition programme ·      Grievance redressal mechanism ·      Employee well-being programmes ·      HR interactions
Investors & Shareholders	·      Annual General Meeting (AGM) ·      Quarterly/Annual results ·      ESG Reports and disclosures ·      Investor roadshows, events ·      Website information ·      Official press release ·      Emails ·      Periodic meetings including one-on-one or group meetings
Government & Regulatory Bodies	·      Advocacy through trade and industry associations ·      Meetings; formal dialogues ·      Stakeholder forums ·      Annual Reports ·      Telephonic communication ·      Video conferences ·      Email
Customers	·      E-mails and meetings ·      Customer Feedback Surveys ·      Business visits ·      Sales visits
Community & NGOs	·      Community meetings ·      CSR programmes ·      Public hearings ·      Community impact assessment surveys ·      CSR Reports
Suppliers	·      E-mails and meetings ·      Contract negotiations ·      Supplier evaluation/due diligence ·      Seminars and conferences
Industry associations	·      Events ·      Conferences/seminars ·      E-mails
Media	·      Press releases ·      Interviews ·      Media events ·      Emails and telephonic communication

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics AEL engaged with its stakeholders through a survey.

What actions were taken by AEL to create economic value for its stakeholders?

In its 2021-22 Sustainability Report AEL reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:

• Creating economic value for employees
• In FY 21-22, AEL paid ₹ crore 1,180.56 for employee wages and benefits.

• Creating economic value for providers of capital
• In FY 21-22, AEL paid ₹ crore 2,647.93 to providers of capital.

• Creating economic value for the government
• In FY 21-22, AEL paid ₹ crore 391 to the government.

• Creating economic value for communities
• In FY 21-22, AEL spent ₹ crore 15.60 in community investments.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed

Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.1, 8.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Targets: 9.1, 9.4, 9.5

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

This case study is based on published information by AEL, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.adanienterprises.com/-/media/Project/Enterprises/Sustainability/document/AEL Sustainability Report 2022.pdf

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