The Missing
ESG Story

Healthcare’s core mission is already about human wellbeing. How does that shape what ESG actually means at Fortis — does it make it easier, or does it create its own blind spots?

Historically, healthcare has been given an easy pass — everything a hospital does is focused on decreasing the disease burden of society, which contributes directly to the “S” in ESG.

But look at the amount of energy consumed in hospital buildings, the gallons of water used, the heaps of biomedical and non-biomedical waste generated — and it’s clear healthcare operators need to do a lot more. We understand this blind spot, and it’s exactly what we’re focused on. We’ve set data-driven baselines for per-occupied-bed energy consumption, water consumption, and waste generation across Fortis hospitals, and every year we set small but meaningful targets to reduce them.

Hospitals are energy-intensive, generate significant medical waste, and run complex supply chains. Where has Fortis made the most meaningful progress so far, and where’s the biggest opportunity ahead?

In the last three years, we’ve reduced our per-occupied-bed energy consumption by 13%. We’re becoming more energy efficient every year — last financial year alone, per-occupied-bed emissions fell by 8.7%.

By recycling 2.75 lakh kilolitres of STP-treated water annually for horticulture, flushing, and cooling towers, we’ve preserved fresh raw water equivalent to 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools. On waste, our shift to compostable plastic bags for general waste diverted over 104 metric tons of plastic last year.

The biggest opportunity ahead is greening our supply chain. We run multiple training and sensitisation programmes for our key vendor partners on sustainability best practice, but the path is long. We have full operational control over what happens within our gates — ensuring sustainable practice beyond them is the real opportunity.

Where did the ESG mandate at Fortis come from? Regulatory, investor-driven, or did it start inside the organisation?

It was a mix of all three. Around 2022–23, SEBI made BRSR reporting voluntary for listed Indian companies. Fortis leadership decided to take the plunge and started monitoring ESG parameters — a move that’s been well received by investors and celebrated by our employees on the ground. It was about time healthcare leaders got serious about sustainability, and that’s where the mandate came from.

Clinical outcomes will always be the primary pressure in healthcare. How do you make the case for sustainability investment in that environment?

Here’s the thing — clinical outcomes are part of sustainability at Fortis. They’re connected: our clinical outcomes reduce the disease burden of society, which is social sustainability. We’ve driven real improvements in patient safety — CAUTI rates down to 0.16 per thousand patient days (from 0.23 in FY23–24), CLABSI rates down to 0.59 (from 0.99). These are sustainability metrics as much as clinical ones.

Patient experience has moved the same way. IPD NPS improved to 73.89% in FY25–26 from 70.02% the year before; OPD NPS rose to 72.41% from 67.32%. Patient centricity is very much part of ESG at Fortis.

That said, I know where this question comes from — added cost is a real concern in a sector where pricing is heavily shaped by government policy. We do struggle with it sometimes. But India is at a sweet spot right now: as a net importer of petroleum products, every shift from non-renewable to renewable energy saves us cost and helps the bottom line.

Money isn’t the only investment an organisation can make in sustainability, either. I’m lucky to work somewhere that puts sustainability into the core of how the business runs. I lead a dedicated ESG function, backed by engineering and administration heads at every Fortis hospital, and the work is tracked and genuinely appreciated by top management, including board members.

BRSR filings contain a huge amount of verified, activity-based data — not marketing claims, but a record of what an organisation has actually done. Are companies under-using that data as a source for stakeholder communication, and what would it take to turn it into a genuine narrative?

It seems to me that the ones actually doing the work on the ground often aren’t communicating enough about it, while the ones talking loudest are mostly rehashing last year’s sustainability report.

This is where third-party audited BRSR Core data comes in. At Fortis we use multiple forums to talk about our on-ground impact — the BRSR format itself to present yearly progress in detail, and soon our first standalone sustainability report. I speak at conferences and summits about what matters in healthcare sustainability, we run ESG training sessions for employees, and we walk investors and analysts through our work on environment, society, and governance in investor calls.

And the effort is showing results. In August 2026, CRISIL upgraded Fortis Healthcare’s ESG rating from “adequate” to “strong.” Earlier this year, NSE’s Sustainability rating upgraded us by ten points. If an organisation takes an honest shot at optimising energy, water, and waste, and presents that work at the right forums, a solid narrative follows — Fortis is proof of that.

What does a good ESG story look like to you, and who’s telling it well?

The world has changed — people can spot greenwashing when they see it.

To me, a good ESG story has hard numbers: a baseline, and improvement expressed in percentages against it. It translates effort into difference made, and states efficiency gains per unit of output in black and white — for us, that’s the per-occupied-bed benchmark.

A good ESG story also carries real hope and positivity about the future.

I genuinely believe Fortis is telling a good ESG story in India. Our friends at Apollo Hospitals are doing substantial work in healthcare sustainability and keep raising the bar here. Internationally, IHH Healthcare — our parent and controlling shareholder — does great work building and presenting a compelling sustainability narrative globally.

Looking ahead, where does healthcare ESG in India need to go over the next five years, and what will it take to get there?

Greening the supply chain will be the key battleground, especially in Indian healthcare. There’s an interesting dichotomy emerging: some vendors are top global equipment manufacturers, deeply serious about ESG. Then there’s a long list of smaller, unlisted vendor partners with no ESG mandate, who need real hand-holding to catch up.

That’s where the next five years of progress will come from — the volume of business running through these MSMEs is huge. SEBI’s mandate for BRSR data from top vendor partners is helping, as is the growing international focus on Scope 3 disclosure.

I’m hopeful that within five years, every stakeholder in healthcare will come together to green the full supply chain, end to end. Sustainability is still optional for some organisations today — that’s where the unfiltered drain leaks into the water. I believe we’ll plug those gaps better in the years ahead, through mandate, regulation, preferential treatment, and individual commitment.