SATTVA People, Planet and Profit CONTENTS he concept of Corporate Social Responsibility in India is not a new one. Corporations like the Tatas have been demonstrating social responsibility way before the term CSR was coined. At their steel city in Jamshedpur, the Forefront Pg 2 TTatas made free medical facilities, subsidized schools and housing, access to parks, stadiums, and clubs part Overview - The Business of Business is.. and parcel of an employee’s package. Apart from taking care of their employees, they started several programs to CSR Activities in Education help the surrounding tribal areas. But, as the unrest in Singur shows, that is not perceived as enough. One too many wasted wastes Since corporations have a mega-impact on people and the planet, each new enterprise calls on them to walk a tight- The Heart at the Core rope, balancing doing business with being responsible to the community around them. Sattvic celebrity - Translating equality into The idea of CSR has caught fire in recent years, and even small-sized enterprises have jumped on the ‘do good while reality. doing good’ bandwagon. So, in this issue we cover – Editorial Pg 8 - An overview of CSR, according to how the initiatives get started. Expert speak - The How, Why, What of CSR - CSR initiatives in the fields of education and environment Guest column - The Mask & The Face - Companies that are leasing out their core competencies to NGOs Postscript - Starting from scratch - Our Sattvic celebrity covers a CSR manager, who is quietly and competently helping a company embrace diversity Diversecity Pg11 - In our guest column, we look at what happens when a company integrates CSR into the core of its activities Converging to Contribute - In postscript, a CSR volunteer narrates his experience. - In Expert Speak, Suja of Infosys talks about the why, what, and how of CSR Refractive index Pg 12 - In refractive index, we cover lesser known, but no less laudable initiatives, and how you can start a CSR initiative in Little drops of water, little grains of sand your own company Get Going ! The skeptics may dismiss CSR as a “branding exercise” or “publicity gimmick”, but we say, let us root for the CSR Interface Pg 14 movement, because every little bit helps. Companies, Initiatives, Contact numbers - 1 - AUGUST 2008 FOREFRONT Email: [email protected] Phone: 9880918605 The Business of Business is… SRIKRISHNA SRIDHAR MURTHY A look at the impetus for CSR initiatives ver the last few years I’ve had nologies that positively impact the envi- tion and let the employee motivation ployees. These companies have found the chance to closely follow ronment, everything comes under the die slowly. In any case, this enthusiastic creative ways that can positively impact OCSR programs across com- umbrella of ‘CSR’. From my experience, bunch of employees is a very important the society, engage their employees panies, first as an employee volunteer I’d like to categorize all these initiatives first step for companies to experience and at the same time increase their bot- social responsibility which can then lead myself, then as a Board member of an into three buckets, depending on how tom lines. Adidas’s Grun project, Toyo- NGO working closely with many com- they get started. to more strategic things. ta’s eco-friendly car or HP’s attempt at panies and most recently as a manage- Firstly, there are initiatives that are em- Secondly, there is a ‘responsive’ CSR creating a digital village are great ex- ment student at an international pro- ployee or a CSR ‘core team’ driven. approach which is, fortunately, not as amples of this concept. gram trying to study the trends in CSR These are usually started off by some prevalent but is worth noting neverthe- As per Milton Freidman’s quote, it is across the world. Through all these highly enthusiastic employees with sup- less. These are programs that compa- important for every company to decide experiences I’ve been amazed by what port from the management and many nies undertake in reaction to an ‘attack’ some companies have achieved as grass-root initiatives stem from them. on their brand or sometimes in anticipa- what the business of their business is part of their CSR programs, but at the Adopting schools, doing collection tion of an ‘attack’. The infamous sweat and hence what kind of ‘CSR’ makes same time I’ve seen and read about drives, blood donation camps etc. have shop incident in the late 90’s and what sense for it. Should a sports company many CSR programs struggling to take been very successfully conducted by followed is an example of such a reac- go around donating books or rather off or dying a slow death. Hence the many companies and are very effective tion. However, companies today real- work towards promoting sports in a question, what makes a CSR program at the grass root level. However, the ize that this reactive approach can be region that could also increase its po- sustainable and impactful in the long detrimental on their brand and hence challenge here is that the frequency, in- tential market size? I say, that’s worth run? prefer to work on protecting and grow- tensity and impact of the programs, the a debate! To answer that question, we need to causes supported and partners chosen ing their brand in a more positive and first understand what CSR means and etc., are highly dependent on the indi- proactive way. how it evolves in an organization. CSR viduals in the ‘core team’ and are sel- Finally, there are the more ‘strategic’ today is a broadly used word and en- dom institutionalized or sustained over CSR companies which strongly believe compasses a variety of things that com- a period of a few years. Further, many that the community and the environ- panies do, from donating books and companies don’t recognize the positive ment are their stakeholders, just like shoes for Christmas to developing tech- impact this can have on their organiza- their shareholders or customers or em- - 2 - AUGUST 2008 FOREFRONT INFOSYS Suja Warriar-Education & Research Dept. Infosys, Bangalore E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 9986508970 AOL Suma Seshagiri-E-commerce Team Phone: 9980544070 E-mail: [email protected] CSR Activities in Education SUMITHRA SIVARAMAKRISHNAN Although the CSR activities of Infosys and AOL might vary in terms of the magnitude of initiatives and the amount of funds raised, there are few common threads that connect all the perspectives of CSR with each other; the dedication to serve society being the most important of them. Left he aim of the CSR Team at Infosys Bangalore is to build awareness about the Students from E-city schools displaying socially relevant initiatives of the organization, enroll people and execute the ini- notebooks distributed by Infosys Volunteers tiatives. One of the noteworthy initiatives (among the many programs initiated T Below over the last 2 years) of this well established CSR team at Infosys is the Notebook Drive. The Infosys Team This was made possible through the contribution made by 25,000 employees of Infosys. which executed the Notebook drive It helped the CSR team to distribute notebooks to 19238 children from 235 schools Project across Karnataka. This initiative for the underprivileged government school children raised Rs. 7 Lakhs in three days. The partnering NGO, The Dream school foundation helped 100’s of volunteers to reach out to places like HDkote and remote villages of Magadi to distribute these notebooks. There are various teams in Infosys actively involved in providing additional support to the government schools during the weekends, setting up computer labs in schools, tapping the potential of retired teachers in Bangalore to take tuitions for children in anganwadis and orphanages. Suja Warriar, member of the core team of CSR initiatives in Infosys says, “some of the programs which we are working on are infrastructure im- provements in rurual schools, rural school children hygiene/health awareness programs, conducting medical camps and developing learning capabilities in children. All these are voluntary initiatives by a group of employees.” - 3 - AUGUST 2008 FOREFRONT Education has been a major area of activity at AOL mentored the 10th class children of in CSR for AOL India. The CSR activities were Ambedkar School. After school, students would Left Making colourful started in AOL India in 2006 by Kumar Talluri, come to the AOL campus and a few volunteers bands for kids as a part of summer camp Vice President heading Platforms in AOL India, would take tuitions for these children. “Students activities who motivated and guided the employees of who passed their exams have joined government Below AOL to start a CSR team. The first program that colleges and they still keep in touch with us. They SAOL’s banerghatta trip as a part of Kids was launched as a part of this initiative was an still remember us for helping them and aspire for summer camp adult education program for the support staff in a better life,” says Suma. the field of English and Basic computers. What started as a small initiative 2 years back has The CSR team at AOL India raised funds to expanded beyond AOL to the other organizations sponsor many activities, including providing mid in the campus. Together, the organizations are day meals to a school with a strength of 270 planning to come up with a centralized educa- children, sponsoring a classroom for Parikrama, tion system for the support staff. and setting up chemistry and computer labs for Rakum Blind School. The team also conducted One of the core members of the CSR team at summer camps for kids during their summer holi- AOL India, Suma Seshagiri says, “Ambedkar days.