Not just another certification. this one's close to the heart for Himalaya.

Himalaya is now a certified ISO-14001:2004 company, the most recognized standard, globally, for environment management. The certification is granted by National Quality Assurance (NQA), the UK's largest and longest established certification bodies. The agency provides certification, assessment services and related training to a wide range of manufacturing, commercial and service sectors.

To be ISO-14001:2004 certified a company needs to put in place critical systems and procedures for pollution control. These include operational control procedures for all polluting activities, meeting legal and legislative requirements laid down by the state environment regulatory authority and having a well-defined set of objectives for taking environment management systems forward.

The organization must also have the infrastructure, systems and trained personnel to look after its surrounding environment, whether it is land, water, air and the communities residing around its facility. Only when all these systems are streamlined and functioning efficiently can the organization obtain the ISO 14001:2004 certification.

Himalaya has been working towards obtaining the ISO-14001:2004 certification and has taken a few bold steps to ensure compliance. The most significant achievement has been the setting up a water treatment plant by creating additional infrastructure and sourcing water with low Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) externally. This has reduced our water consumption by as much as 40,000 liters a day! Along with conserving water, this new system has also brought down costs by a substantial margin. We have also made investments in air pollution counter measures which have resulted in reducing exposure of employees to dust particles. The company has set and met stiff targets for reducing consumption of non-renewable energies like fuel and power, which are rapidly depleting resources and major pollutants. With Ozone depletion being a major concern today, we have installed a CFC free air conditioning at its R&D unit! Himalaya was also one of the first companies in Karnataka to implement rain water harvesting on-site, substantially improving the water table in surrounding areas.

After assessing our facilities for environment management, NQA felt that adequate systems have been put in place to combat pollution and that the employees have high awareness of the importance of sound environmental practices.

Since our business is all about Researching nature, this achievement is very special-primarily because the lives of future generations' depend on how we interact with our environment today and every little step in this direction has long lasting benefits; secondly, the world of nature is very integral to our business and protecting it through sustainable practices makes good business sense!