Overview
Over the years, India Inc. has increasingly become aware of social responsibility
as being important to business. Many consider it important to integrate
it with their business strategy. Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
has come a long way from the time when companies merely gave donations
to charity to the present time, when several companies have fully integrated
social goals with their business goals.
Most Indian companies undertake initiatives that meet the strictest
definition of the term quality as corporate social responsibility. In
the absence of a structured approach to defining CSR and a system for
its deployment, companies are often unaware of the nature of such initiatives
and the magnitude of their investment in CSR initiatives.
CSR activities are, in fact, are predominantly driven by the developmental
needs of the Indian communities in which the businesses exist. Poverty,
poor infrastructure and living conditions, lack of education, inadequate
health care facilities, and inadequate sources of livelihood in the
surrounding communities are of concern to Indian industry.
In India educational institutions, the corporate sector, the social
sector, and the government are together working on the very important
question of how to integrate CSR into the curriculum of business schools
and into corporate business strategies.
India, with its strong and dynamic private sector and a strong ethical
tradition, is best placed to take up CSR.
Corporations have over the years focused on the following areas:
- Community development (for livelihood programs)
- Disaster management
- Education and literacy
- Population and health, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS through
the Indian Business Trust for
- HIV/AIDS
- Physical challenges
- Vocational training
- Empowerment of women
- Sustainable-livelihood programs
Most CSR programs are designed to tie into the business of the company.
Many hardware and software majors have made a foray into e-learning
by using their old computers and having a team of developers work on
the content. The biggest success story in this are remains the e-choupal
initiative of the ITC Group. ITC has been able to penetrate reach remote
villages through the traditional choupals (village meeting places),
by installing V-SAT, computers, public address systems, and solar power.
It uses E-choupal (the name of its agriculture portals) to market its
products as well as procure raw material. The system benefits the farmers,
because they can sell directly to the company without middlemen.
 Global trend & India’s position
CSR is recognized as an important agenda item for today's CEOs worldwide.
A study conducted by PriceWaterhouse Cooper's states that according
to nearly 70 percent of CEOs, CSR is “vital” to profitability.
Even in the current economic climate, it will remain a high priority
for 60 percent of CEOs globally. Although CSR's value has become
nearly universal, it manifests itself quite differently from region
to region, country to country.
Africa, for example, perceives a strong connection between corporate
profitability and societal improvements, including infrastructure, education,
and addressing the ravages of AIDS, and its CSR programs are driven
by this perception.
In North America, CEOs recognize that corporate social reputation has
less to do with earnings and more to do with reputation across a broad
array of stakeholders.
In Europe, the foremost issue is provision of a sound working environment,
followed closely by responsibility to all stakeholders and ensuring
shareholder value.
For Asia-Pacific CEOs, external endorsements are relatively unimportant
in their societies, in which public opinion is unlikely to be as consistently
focused on issues of corporate reputation as elsewhere in the world.
Central and South American CEOs agree on first things first: a safe
and healthy working environment is their dominant concern, followed
by responsibility to their stakeholders.
In India companies realize that their success depends on what happens
in the marketplace. It also depends on the morale, commitment, and loyalty
of the workforce; the loyalty of the customer base; and a company's
public reputation. All of these factors contribute to the long-term
success of the company.
They also believe that if environmental awareness and social responsibility
are growing, these things will be reflected in the attitude of the workforce.
Companies cannot command respect among the employees if they do not
have a reputation for being environmentally and socially responsible.
CII Initiatives
Social Infrastructure Development Council
CII set up the Social Infrastructure Development Council (SIDC) in 1995,
to
- Ensure that the benefits of economic reform and industrial growth
are available to unemployed people living in poverty
- Facilitate industry CSR to achieve holistic community development,
and build a strong partnership across the sectors for better governance,
accountability, and empowerment
The council, through its team of experts, offers specialized services
to help companies plan and implement development initiatives. In its
efforts to sensitize the corporate sector to social development, CII
has been organizing a Social Summit every year (since 1998) at different
locations.
The role of the council is to initiate and implement projects and programs
under various schemes of the government of India and to provide necessary
help, assistance, and guidance to strengthen CSR initiatives of industry/CII
membership.
Changing mind-sets and the growing demands of industry have driven
the council to work towards strengthening CSR and help businesses ensure
corporate participation in social development.
Areas of Focus
The Council has been focusing on the following areas:
- Community Development (for livelihood programs)
- Community development (for livelihood programs)
- Disaster management
- Education and literacy
- Population and health, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS through
the Indian Business Trust for HIV/AIDS
- Physical challenges
- Vocational training
- Empowerment of women
- Sustainable-livelihood programs
It has taken up special projects and programs in:
- Jammu & Kashmir
- Bihar
- Gujarat
SDC Partners
The Solution Delivery Center (SDC) works closely and in partnership with
the government of India, multilateral and bilateral agencies, and other
civil society organizations on various innovative projects and programs.
It has been receiving financial support and technical assistance for
these projects. The SDC has signed several MoUs and contracts with state
governments and multilateral agencies (UNDP, UNIFEM, UNESCO, WHO, World
Bank) for specific sectors such as health, education, and watershed.
CII and UNDP have also set up the India Partnership Forum (IPF) to promote
CSR. This program has the following initiatives :
Adoption and Operationalization of IPF Social Code
To persuade more and more companies to sign up for the Global Compact
(GC), CII and UNDP have brought out a Social Code for Business, which
facilitates the operationalization of GC. About 125 companies across
various sectors have volunteered to participate in the IPF Social Code
[[IPF is a joint program of CII and UNDPSeveral initiatives have been
undertaken to facilitate effective implementation of the code.
Mainstreaming Social Concerns in Business Education
CII, in collaboration with UNDP and in partnership with the All-India
Council for Technical Education and the Management Development Institute
has published a book entitled Corporate Social Responsibility Concepts
& Cases – The Indian Experience. With this, CII is trying to
approach management institutes and business schools to introduce CSR
as a curriculum.
CSR Survey India 2002
To assess the key dimensions of CSR in India, including the drivers
and barriers, a national survey on CSR was undertaken in mid-2002 in
collaboration with CII, the British Council and PriceWaterhouse Coopers.
This was one of the first such efforts in India. The survey offers pointers
on possible ways to further the CSR agenda in the country. For more
information, please visit
www.indiapartnershipforum.org.
Current issues in Social Sector
Given the context of Indian society and the inability of government and
social institutions to meet the development needs of the country alone,
companies' refraining from investing in CSR can hardly be justified.
In the current situation, CSR investment by Indian companies assumes
the status of a duty or a national obligation.
The challenge for CII is to motivate companies to create competitive
advantage for themselves by addressing their business context. They
will have to innovate programs that can be of benefit to business and
the community.
Opportunities for collaboration
Due to the deep sense of commitment most Indian Americans have to their
hometown and alma mater, they have always contributed generously to
their welfare. Many projects and opportunities exist for Indian Americans
to contribute to, including
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Providing technical guidance on how CSR can be linked with business
(as a bottom-of-pyramid approach). Sustainability (UK) has assisted
some companies in this area. |
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Doing an impact assessment of a given project. |
For more information please send email to iac@cii-usa.org.
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