Y.C. Deveshwar on Family-Business Stewardship

Open credits Deveshwar with making ITC a global exemplar in sustainability — what current chairman Sanjiv Puri calls 'the only company in the world to become carbon positive, water positive and solid waste positive for over a decade'.

Pradeep Dhobale, a former ITC director, recalls Deveshwar handing him the loss-making ITC Bhadrachalam paper business in 1999 with the words 'I am giving the lives of 2,000 families in your hands. Please take care of them' — with no mention of production, revenue or profit targets.

Deveshwar argues sustainability is a strategic asset. Beyond e-Choupal, he cites sourcing pulp from renewable plantations rather than cheaper imports to create tribal and marginal-farmer livelihoods; integrated watershed development covering over 56,000 hectares; animal husbandry services reaching over 450,000 milch animals; supplementary education for over 200,000 rural children; and roughly 30,000 women entrepreneurs created through about 1,...