L&T Finance Holdings Ltd. (LTFH), a leading Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) has been conferred with the ‘Champions of ESG‘ Award at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2023 held in Mumbai. GFF is the largest fintech conference, jointly organised by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Payments Council of India (PCI), and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC).
Ms. Apurva Rathod (2nd from right), Group Head – Secretarial & CSR and Sustainability and Ms. Gazala Shaikh (1st from right), Head – Group ESG from L&T Finance receiving the Champions of ESG award
The Company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) journey started in 2018-19, making it one of first NBFCs to embrace sustainability. The ESG Policy adopted by LTFH has been a guiding framework to incorporate ESG considerations into operations and business, and mitigate material impacts and risks. Integrating ESG practices in to the Company’s businesses have resulted in achieving significant strides towards initiatives like financing Electric Vehicles (EVs), offering rural group loans and micro finance to over 60 lakh women borrowers among others.
In order to reduce its carbon footprint, LTFH continuously assesses and implements energy-efficient measures and makes efforts to move to Green Energy wherever feasible in its operations. In FY23, the Company invested in increasing the carbon sinks through sapling plantations under its project titled ‘Prakruti’.
Mr. Dinanath Dubhashi, Managing Director & CEO of LTFH, said, “We at LTFH, have adopted ESG as one of the pillars of sustainable business growth as part of our Lakshya 2026 strategy. LTFH is one of the early adopters among NBFCs in the country to raise Sustainability Focussed and Linked Loans. We have raised such loans to the tune of Rs. 585 crore with a commitment to achieve progress on three important sustainability linked Key Performance Indicators relating to Water Positivity, Carbon Sequestration and Responsible Lending to women entrepreneurs. In FY23, we undertook numerous measures in this direction and have also made significant progress in our efforts to become Carbon Neutral by FY35. In addition, we initiated the merger of entities to create a single lending entity to further strengthen governance. LTFH published its maiden Integrated Annual Report, which explains the Company’s performance and value creation model for stakeholders. We are delighted to receive ‘Champions of ESG’ Award at the Global Fintech Fest 2023 and remain committed to building an ESG conscious organisation.”
In addition to the various initiatives, the Company is taking focused measures in other areas like Health and Safety, Diversity, Inclusion and Equity, Human Rights, Data Privacy and continues to identify and evaluate various avenues to reduce its carbon footprint.
About L&T Finance Holdings (LTFH)
L&T Finance Holdings Limited (LTFH) (www.ltfs.com), a leading Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), offers a range of financial products and services through its subsidiary L&T Finance Ltd. (LTF) under the L&T Finance brand. Headquartered in Mumbai, the Company has been rated AAA – the highest credit rating for NBFCs – by four leading rating agencies. It has also received leadership scores and ratings by global and national Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating providers for its sustainability performance. The Company has also won many prestigious awards for its flagship CSR project – “Digital Sakhi” which is focused on women empowerment and digital and financial inclusion. Under Right to Win, being in the ‘right businesses’ has helped the Company become one of the leading financiers in key retail products. The Company is focused on creating a top-class, digitally-enabled retail finance Company as part of the Lakshya 2026 plan. The goal is to move the emphasis from product focus to customer focus and establish a robust retail portfolio with quality assets, thus creating a Fintech@Scale while keeping ESG at the core. Fintech@Scale is one of the pillars of the Company’s strategic roadmap – Lakshya 2026. The Company has over 2.1 crore customer database, and this database is being leveraged to cross-sell, up-sell as well as identify new customers.