The Building Master Training - A case story on CSR and Sustainability published in book titled "Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development - Strategies, Practices and Business Models" by Dr. Jitendra K Das, Dr. Shalinni Taneja and Dr. Hitesh Arora
CSR Mirror.......
"The intent of this blog is to make comprehend with CSR as business process and effective tool for sustainable business amongst all the corporate citizen & development practitioners and share the various CSR practices and its impact across the globe."
Friday 10 September 2021
Thursday 17 October 2019
Leveraging strength -Not for Profit Organizations and Industries, walking together
CSR law in Companies Act 2013
brought new dimension in community development or social sector. Prior to that
Not for Profit organizations had critical role to play in terms of resource
mobilization and implementation of projects with social imperatives. Now new
CSR rule has not only ensured active participation of industries it has also
attracted sizable investments in social sector as well as business practices which
are being used to make social projects more beneficial and sustainable.
Although development organizations
and industries are working together to leverage from each other’s strength,
however I still see some gap in their approach to execute social projects with
multilayer interests. It is also evident from recent report of KPMG, which
shows that in 2015, about 15% implementation of CSR projects was done by
development organization which increased up to 37% in 2017 but drastically went
down 9% in 2018. While implementation of CSR projects in combinations (Not for
Profit Organization + Industries) has grown up to 91% in 2018 compare to 62% in
2017. But the positive side is that the stake of development organization in
attracting financial assistance grew from Rs. 3014 Cr in 2017 to Rs. 3467 Cr in
2018.
Development organizations are
more focused to bring positive and social change in community by mobilizing
resources, developing innovative practices, working deep at grass root level to
create sustainable impact. While Industries see CSR as tool to not only create
impact on community, also establishing themselves as socially conscious and
responsible organization, improving the
relations with stakeholders etc. Above data reflects that Industries have opted
to go more with joint projects instead relying totally on development or
community based organizations.
Development organizations and
Industries have their own strength as well as interest areas. Both, if work
together may create win-win situation for every stakeholders engrossed in
projects. It is for both sides that they
need to look where their strength lies and how they can leverage for each
other. Coming from Development sector and now working in CSR space I encounter
with lots of differences between Not for Profit organization and Industries.
Development organizations have impression that Industries are not spending
enough on various thematic areas; however Industries think that there are still
lack of quality organization to execute CSR projects understating their
specific needs and target impact. I feel that there is gap in knowledge and
also intrusion in each other’s space. Both need to understand their
requirements and build a strategy which works for everyone. At one side,
development organizations need space to try out their ideas to bring notable
change in community at other side the business challenge or risk from external
stakeholders needs to be mitigated through community interventions.
Tuesday 27 November 2018
CSR-steadily but contributing towards sustainable growth of India
CSR is the means through which
Indian Inc. are embarking upon sustainable growth. This journey started a
decade ago in 2007 from adoption of inclusive growth plan in 11th
Five Year plan and still making its way towards sustainable growth in India.
Although there are lots of
misconceptions about CSR, many corporate citizens see this as philanthropy and
have not understood its strategic imperatives in their businesses. CSR has potential to contribute for every
business process, if synced with core business ethos of company. It has ability
to contribute to every risk or challenge comes on the way be it production,
market penetration, stakeholder management, brand image communication, manpower
efficiency, customer quality management or most important profitability. And
all of it comes through creating value for societal and environmental
challenges. In my opinion, looking at CSR as philanthropic tool is under estimating its value in business process. Thus, integration between CSR and business
strategies make it sustainable and lucrative for both sides. Even, every
stakeholder engrossed in the strategically designed and developed CSR projects
get benefited from its shared growth.
CSR steadily, but significantly
started contributing towards sustainable growth of India. The CSR data shared
by many companies shows how it has made its presence through various activities
and projects across all states and UTs.
Since its inception in 2014, a total of 48,606 CSR projects has been done
till 2017. All these projects are spread in 29 thematic areas/sectors aligned with
schedule VII of section 135 of Companies Act 2013. The major sectors in which
Indian Inc. has spent its CSR fund are; education, skill development,
preventive health, sanitation, environment sustainability, rural infra
development, agriculture, sports, drinking water and rain water harvesting,
Art & culture etc. The
diversification of CSR spent is ensuring the inclusiveness and growth across
all the section of society and environment. If we look upon the CSR spent in
last 4 years, it also shows the increasing CSR footprints in India. In last 4
years since its inception, Indian Inc has spent Rs 27724.3 Cr[i].
It is notable that CSR spends have increased approx 74% from 2014-15 to
2017-18.
Through all these data
presentation and elaboration I want to make point that CSR has not only started
contributing towards sustainable growth but it would be revolutionary if
corporate citizens integrate this with its business processes.
CSR must be looked as a tool to
not only serve the society and environmental risk, but it will emphasizes to
bring across all sections of society, companies, public and private
institutions together to ensure sustained growth of India.
Let it not be a mere philanthropic tool.Friday 16 February 2018
Primary education in India, How CSR can add value to it
India’s primary education
delivery system has indeed transformed from its Gurukul to Macaulay’s education system in 20th century and now
Free and Compulsory education system. No one can deny that despite lots of
challenges, India has achieved huge milestones in education sector because of
its consistent efforts in last many decades by current and successive
governments. There is significant access in schooling, increase in enrolments
and development of infrastructure in education sector in different part of
India.
In existing education service
delivery system, there are 3 sources to provide primary education; Government
established schools, Government aided schools (run by private institutions or
societies) and Private schools. The primary responsibility to provide
elementary education to children in country is lies with Government of India with
support of their State counterparts. In current scenario Government schools are
still largest source to access primary education while numbers of private
schools are increasing too.
Some interesting trend emerges
from the Annual Status Report 2016 (ASER). Enrolment of students has increased
in comparison to its last year tally, the learning ability to students have
increased too. The infrastructure has improved in Govt. schools, teacher pupils’
ratio has reached to the desired level, the ratio of gender parity has
improved, most of schools are having sanitation facilities etc.
But still, it’s not
enough to reach out to the goal for providing Free and Compulsory education to
each and every child in the country. In spite
of the massive expansion of educational facilities and efforts made for
qualitative improvement of elementary education, the problems of access,
participation and quality in respect of elementary education continued to
persist. This, together with a variety of new challenges and social needs made
it imperative to evolve a new design for education.
In my opinion, only few modifications in existing policy would not make any difference
until there is paradigm shift in
whole education approach. There is no any coherence between
existing educational framework and potential employment sectors which is resulting
into massive skill initiatives by Govt. After main stream
education program, large chunk of youth are going for additional vocational
skilling programs to acquire new skill sets to get employment. If, it would
have been synced with their main stream education programs certainly they would
have reduced time and effort to get employment and even Govt. might have
reduced its exchequer on skill projects too.
Indian Inc may play a very crucial role
by engaging with various stakeholders and may deliberate upon formulating a new
education delivery mechanism. In new system, corporate may invest their
earmarked CSR budget to strengthen, school infrastructure, supply teaching
learning materials, capacity building of teachers, designing integrated
curriculum and course content, use of technology in monitoring, assessment of
schools and most important mobilization of students to improve enrollment and attendance. To make
govt. education system lucrative to its customer, corporate may add value by
bringing lot of innovative practices from their business experiences.
So my take on this subject, there
is need of developing synergy between education policies, course content,
service delivery with taking India’s growth (next 25-30 years) in the
consideration, especially being attentive to absorb its demographic dividends. For any strong nation their foundation
(children) to be strong as well and this could be achieved only by providing
quality education to the children and linking education with nation growth
plan. Indian Inc has to think beyond conventional education projects to
transformative education projects in various streams.
Wednesday 13 December 2017
ISR - new dimension towards social upliftment
Philanthropy is embedded
in the Indian culture since ancient times. But it wasn’t a conscious ‘Giving Action’,
people are doing it as and when it was needed. But in the era of industrialization and complex
work environment where lot of inter-relationship is required, social
responsibility become very important tool. So now, charity, philanthropy and
donation have new name ‘Social Responsibility (SR)’ and steadily becoming part
of life style in society with people who can afford this. Social Responsibility
can be classified as responsibility lies with ‘Corporate Citizens’ and ‘Individual
Citizens’.
Primarily,
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) which
is now most spread ‘Buzz’ word, is being taken care by Corporate under their business
mandate and very much integrated in the business process. CSR has shown its
significance as important business tool to respond business challenges derived
from various critical stakeholders and complex ecosystem.
But I am here
talking about the larger point which is social responsibilities lies with individuals,
may afford to be part of healthy society building through ‘Individual Social
Responsibility Actions’ (ISR).
“Eventually,
ISR has brought new dimension towards social upliftment”
Although
there is no fundamental change in the nature of activities are being done under
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Individual Social Responsibility
(ISR), as upliftment of society is in the core of the both practices. However,
in Indian context both are being practiced separately as CSR and ISR which is
also known as part of Employee Engagement Activities. And this happen only
because of CSR law, which is in effect from 2014. So, CSR is something which
being practiced by the corporate citizen for improving the living condition of
communities around its business locations. However, ISR is being developed as
culture within organization to engage its workforce in various community
projects as their individual responsibility towards society.
ISR is about
an individual becoming responsible in his/her actions that have affects on
communities outside his/her immediate circles. The immediate circle being
friends or acquaintance from their surroundings. ISR is not only about committing acts of
charities or working for communities where you have material interest. These
only form of ISR, which is a broader concept that can be manifested through
actions as below;
- Philanthropic behavior of individual
- The campaigner, volunteer and activist instincts in the individual which picks up and support the issues which affects to the society.
- The above two coupled with an individual being ethical (integrity, honesty) in his/her towards dealings.
Tuesday 22 August 2017
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