Hindustan Zinc has signed a memorandum of understanding with The Energy and Resources Institute to develop a 250-hectare ecological restoration project at its Chanderiya Lead Zinc Smelter Complex in Rajasthan. The company presented the initiative as a move to convert industrial land into a self-sustaining natural ecosystem and to create what it described as the world’s largest green cover area within industrial premises. The project is positioned as a strategic element of the company’s efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

The restoration will follow a scientific multi-layered approach with native trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses selected for local conditions, together with invasive species management and measures to support water bodies and aquatic ecosystems. TERI will assist in identifying suitable native and adaptive plant species and will provide subject matter expertise across planning, design and implementation phases. Long-term maintenance and protection protocols are to be developed as part of the plan.

The collaboration builds on prior work at the complex, where restoration of 22.25 hectares at the Jarofix Yard has been completed in two phases, and a six-hectare biodiversity park is being developed atop the secured landfill. Using TERI’s Mycorrhiza technology, the earlier initiative enabled the planting of nearly 56,400 native trees and established dense green cover on degraded industrial land. The new project aims to scale those outcomes across a much larger area.

The company said the initiative supports its Sustainability Goal 2030 and its ambition to deliver a Net Positive Impact for nature, and its chief executive emphasised that sustainability guides operations and partnerships. The firm has a 530 megawatt (MW) round-the-clock renewable energy agreement expected to meet over 70 per cent of its power requirement, has raised its water recycling rate to 49 per cent, expanded its green mobility fleet to 232 vehicles and said it is transforming the lives of two point six million (mn) people while supplying to more than 40 countries with about 74 per cent share of the primary zinc market in India.