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Look who’s responsible
Posted On Saturday, January 05, 2008

For the first time in India, NGO conducts Corporate Social Responsibility analysis

Tresha Guha      

Karmayog, a non-government organisation (NGO) at Fort for the first time in India, conducted an analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) undertaken by companies. They have rated the top 500 companies that are engaging in CSR. Says Vinay Somani, trustee, Karmayog, “We are just checking if corporates are actually conducting their CSR. If a company is utilising or harming the environment’s natural resources for its manufacturing or disposing processes, they need to undertake some other activity that will minimise or neutralise the damage they are doing. Many companies under the garb of creating employee driven ventures claim they are undertaking social responsibility ventures. We are doing this so that companies are informed about sector-specific guidelines that they need to adopt.”

 Fortunately, there are some companies that are doing very good work, like HDFC, Infosys, TISCO and Titan. “Every organisation uses energy, damages the environment and even creates e-waste. It’s important that they give something back to the environment. They can undertake numerous CSR ventures like rainwater harvesting or generating employment for the physically challenged,” says Somani.

Collating this information was no easy task. Says Somani, “By studying these companies’ annual reports and websites, we managed to get all the required information. They should follow international guidelines of CSR. Since Karmayog is a platform to get stake holders together, we just wanted to educate people about the role corporates have in creating a good environment. Also, the companies that are involved in CSR can feel proud and other companies can learn from their example.”

The sector-wise analysis is useful for the following reasons:

• It presents a picture of an entire sector, their common processes
and products, their CSR, including examples of companies doing
good CSR

• It presents figures of the income (from sales) of the entire sector, the net profit being made by that entire sector, and the amount that a sector should spend on CSR. (Karmayog recommends that companies spend
a minimum of 0.2 per cent of income on CSR annually)

• Where available, sector-specific guidelines to be adopted by each sector as specified by the International Finance Corporation are included with the sector tables

treshaguha@timesgroup.com