Smart Podcast with Mr. T.V Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel

Sure. Thanks.

So you know, obviously this is a change which dawns on you and you make multiple changes. So if I were to think of a couple of things, let me put it that way. One is what I mentioned last year, I've consciously gone off paper in some sense of the term, trying to use less and less paper, use the electronic media more and more. The other part which I think has been happening over the years and I'm very conscious now is how do I cut down on my consumption? How can you use your products longer? So wherever I can, I try and do it. As an example, the car that I use in Jamshedpur is now 11 years old. The office bag that I was using, I've just changed it last week after 12 years. Wow. Right. So I try and do that. The other thing which my wife and I have started doing every year is go through the house and give away stuff that we are not using, which also encourages us to buy less. So things like that. So I think you make these changes which open your mind to the possibilities and hopefully in some sense helps you reduce the footprint that you leave behind as an individual.

I think if you can make that shift, it will not happen overnight. So in Europe, as you're aware, we are already moving from a linear value chain to a circular value chain. We've already made that shift in the UK where we've closed blast furnaces and we are building an electric arc furnace. In Netherlands, we are in conversation with the Dutch government to do a similar thing. So by 2035, we won't have any blast furnaces operating in Europe. So from producing 10 million tons of steel using blast furnaces, we'll be producing 10 million tons of steel using alternate process routes which are greener. We set up a recycling plant a few years back near Delhi, we are setting up a recycling-based steel making unit in Ludhiana which will be ready by the end of this financial year. So we're making that shift. Already in the next 10-15 years, 10-15 million tons of Tata Steel's production will be through the recycling route. And if over the next few decades we can shift entirely into the recycling route, I think that'll be a great achievement for a company like Tata Steel in a growing market which has been used to a linear value chain for a very long time. So linearity to circularity is one shift we are making.

No, it's a complex transition. We should not underestimate the cost and complexity of this transition. It's going to cost us to make more steel this way through this process route than through the old process route. So in Europe, you have a policy framework which supports you on some of those costs. You have governments willing to provide you some grants if you make that transition. You have customers willing to pay you more, and then as a company you need to put in the rest. So that's one challenge. The viability of the new process route is going to be tested unless there is support from all the stakeholders. There's no business case for a steel company to do it by themselves. So dealing with that. Secondly, all the steels that our customers want cannot easily be made through the recycling route. So you need to do a lot more product development, a lot more R&D, etc. And you're competing with a world where there's a lot of steel being produced through the other methods. Ours is a global industry where 400 million tons of steel flows across borders. So you have to be competitive and survive in the marketplace while at the same time making this transition. And when you make this transition, you're deploying a lot of capital without growth, because this capital is being deployed to close one process route and build another process route, and you're not really investing to grow the top line in some sense. In fact, if at all, your bottom line gets impacted because the costs go up. So it's a very complex journey, but I think as a group we are always committed to do what is right, often times even before the law requires us to do it, and that's a responsibility Tata Steel has and will discharge.