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Podcast transcript: Sustaining Sustainability: In conversation with Mastek on its ESG strategy and execution

12 min | 05 June 2023

In conversation with:

Nitesh Mehrotra: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Sustaining Sustainability podcast series, presented by EY India Insights Podcast Series. We at EY are committed to taking meaningful steps toward climate action and social inequity. In this podcast series, we will explore some of the leading global organizations and how they are building a better working world, especially by leveraging technology and innovation in their sustainability journey to create value for all their stakeholders.

I am Nitesh Mehrotra, your host for the EY Partner, Sustainability & ESG. We at EY and I firmly believe that sustainability transformation requires the scale of an industrial revolution and, importantly, the speed of the digital revolution to create value for stakeholders. My guest today is Vimal Dangri, who, is a Lead, Sustainability & ESG, Mastek Limited. He and his team are responsible for the ESG and sustainability journey at Mastek. 

Mastek is a leading global player in the tech sector and a well-known organization in enterprise level digital engineering and cloud transformation business. Welcome to the podcast, Vimal. 

Vimal Dangri: Thank you. It is a pleasure to be part of the podcast about sustainability and ESG, Nitesh. It is such an important topic, especially in the current times.

Nitesh: Yes, absolutely. So, Vimal, to start with, I wanted you to share an overview of your business and the Mastek’s vision as an organization. I think that will be helpful for our listeners.

Vimal: Sure. Mastek is a premier IT services provider and has been transforming the digital objectives of its customers for over three decades, across more than 40 countries. Right from navigating the digital landscape to unlocking the power of data and staying competitive, we help enterprises modernize applications and accelerate digital advantage. As part of our strategic vision 2025, which will drive accelerated growth over the next three years. Our goal is to grow three-fold in the second half of the decade, at least in terms of revenue. We also want to be among the top three in growth among mid-cap IT services and benchmark for ‘Great Place to Work’ and ‘Customer Delight’. We already have the ‘Great Place to Work’ as a tag. This is in the last year (2023); we got it for our India, UK and Middle East business.

Nitesh: Now pivoting to sustainability, and I know sustainability is a critical part of your business strategy, what do you think are the key challenges as you strive toward creating a more sustainable future? And, which I think will be important for our listeners to know, how is Mastek intending to deal with some of these challenges?

Vimal: At Mastek, we are deeply invested in reimagining our future into a shared reality that everyone can adapt to with ease and benefit from equitably. Our ESG vision focuses on shaping and sharing solutions to tackle this global challenge. Climate change and global warming increasing at an alarming rate are the key sustainability challenges, as you know Nitesh, that every industry faces. This is including the tech sector, considering its high dependency on electricity due to automations and digitization.

Another key social dimension is skill availability and retention, which is very relevant for an IT company like Mastek. Growing a market with new business models requires specific skills with lesser lead time. This has become even more challenging as organizations are adopting remote or hybrid ways of working. However, at the same time, it is an opportunity to source talent from new locations that have not been tried before, which opens up a much wider talent landscape. We know how organizations have innovated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I think such innovations are only furthering, irrespective of the growing concern about coming back to office. Mastek continues to thrive there. Our ESG priorities and goals are also aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Nitesh: Sustainability is a marathon and not a sprint, so to say. It is a long journey and one that is constantly emerging and evolving. With that backdrop, Vimal, where is Mastek currently in its ESG journey? More importantly, what are the goals that you are tracking in this very complex and evolving journey? 

Vimal: Our ESG mission focuses on shaping and sharing solutions to tackle this global challenge. The ESG roadmap lays out the actions that Mastek will execute to achieve its sustainability objectives. As you know, Nitesh, in collaboration with your ESG team, we have emphasized on a few important pillars. The first one that I would always go for is the governance part. Governance has been synonymous with Mastek’s name for the last 40 years of the company’s existence. Mastek continues to strengthen this in all manner possible. We have implemented certain actions that became part of the law later, for example, CSR contribution and others. Added to that, the creation of ESG metrics and benchmarking; capacity building across the global functions at Mastek, digitization of our ESG roadmap; and ESG rating, IQ, and benchmarking. Lastly, Mastek being among the top 10 Indian companies to benchmark ESG metrics for performance. So, some of these stand out for Mastek, and thanks for your team, Nitesh, for helping us with this. 

Our roadmap ahead entails first focusing on net zero targets and accelerating our transition, digitization, and automation of ESG monitoring. And second, focusing on sustainable supply chains. Moreover, sustainable learning is a key element within our employee skill level development framework. 

If I were to break it down between E, S and G, then for E, which is for environment, Mastek aims to achieve carbon neutrality by FY26 and our net zero target by FY30. We are accelerating our transition to a low carbon economy through technological innovations and broad stakeholder engagement. 

For social, ‘S’, we aim to achieve 40% gender diversity by FY26. Also, our company has a strong and established CSR framework. This framework existed even before CSR became a law as per Companies Act, 2013. Our mission is ‘Informed giving; Responsible receiving’. Mastek is committed to touch a million lives through its CSR program by FY28. We are also committed to achieving 25% social return on investment as calculated by the social policy in the UK.

For ‘G’ governance, we have a rich legacy of ethical governance practices and we follow some corporate governance practices with a view to bring transparency in our operations and maximize shareholder value. So, this was a bit of a glimpse into our goals and visions, and we are really striving hard to see all of this pan out.

Nitesh: Thank you, Vimal, for sharing the very comprehensive approach that you are taking, and especially the goals that are embedded in your business and ways of working. With that, we come to our last question, which I think many of our listeners always think about. It essentially pertains to the business case for sustainability. What do you think has been the impact of all the goals and bold ambitions, I must say, that you talked about? What is the impact of these initiatives across all your stakeholders, Vimal, in your view?

Vimal: That is a great question and thanks for asking. I will start with investors. Mastek is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. As you know, this index is one of the world's most renowned ESG indices and it amplifies corporate sustainability convictions being aligned with investment portfolios. Mastek’s detailed ESG performance increases the level of transparency and helps investors make long-term decisions. That is the first big impact we have seen. For employees and for the leadership, to start with, ESG is included in charter of terms of reference of the risk management and governance committee, which oversees ESG-related risks and also identifies measures for risk mitigation, including systems and processes for internal control. For our employees, Mastek aims to promote digital skills and increase the average learning hours per employee by organizing various trainings and sponsoring certifications.

For society as a whole, through the Mastek Foundation, we inspire and encourage employers to give back to the community. We support NGOs to scale and build their capabilities through IT. In FY22, 15 CSR projects helped 44,000-plus beneficiaries. We also emphasize on the importance of skill development, and this can be seen through our project Deep Blue Initiative, which is a contest that encourages young students to develop IT applications to solve real-world problems such as access to eye care, plastic waste management, public sanitation and more.

Nitesh: Thanks, Vimal. That was very comprehensive. I really liked the way you talked about all your stakeholders, whether it is the employees, who are obviously very important stakeholders for you as a business enterprise. You talked about the society and community as well as investors and your customers. The overview was very helpful, Vimal.

To conclude, thank you so much for your time and valuable insights, Vimal. Hopefully, all our listeners found the conversation and the journey that Mastek is taking inspiring and helpful. They may embed some of those learnings in their journey as well. Looking forward to many more such conversations with you and obviously pursuing some of the great work Mastek is doing, which is creating value for all the stakeholders. Thanks, Vimal, for all the time and sharing your insights.

Vimal: Thanks to you and your team for having me. It is a privilege to be part of such a podcast where we can share experiences and insights with a larger audience. Thank you.

Nitesh: On that note, we have reached the end of our podcast. Thank you to all our listeners for tuning in.

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