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| Illustration: Uday Deb |
The London-based Ethical Corporation was founded in 2001. It holds conferences and conducts custom research. More important, it publishes a magazine which is printed 10 times a year.
The question one needs to ask is why it took so long for such an organisation and publication to come into existence. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been around for some decades now; the expression came into being in the early 1970s. The western multinationals that first started this would like to feel that it was a result of their recognition of the importance of business ethics.
Critics, however, say it was a consequence of pressure from developing countries protesting against exploitation; some bananas had to be recycled for the poor in the banana republics. The latter version is probably truer than the generosity and goodness-of-our-hearts claims. Even today, soft drink companies have had to be dragged down the CSR road.
And the less said about the tobacco giants the better. One should also remember that some of the most venerated names in Indian business today started life as opium traders, smuggling the pernicious stuff to China.
How much do Indian companies care about CSR? A recent Assocham study shows 67 per cent of domestic corporates have joined hands with non-governmental organisations “for partnering closely to discharge their CSR initiatives and projects, while 58 per cent of them prefer government departments.”
Some 21 per cent are working with multilateral or bilateral organisations. A good 58 per cent have formed a separate CSR department. (A company can, of course, choose more than one partner.)
Joining hands with others is necessary; a corporate is not expected to have the skills required for successfully implementing CSR projects. (Companies that really believe in CSR do end up with such expertise, however.) The more important issue is how important they think CSR is. The Assocham study says that only 21 per cent have come up with a separate CSR report and 8 per cent of them have very merely reported their CSR activities in their annual report. In some way, CSR in India is still lip service.
Assocham had organised an international summit on corporate social responsibility in January 2008, its first ever. There it had emphasised that “the concept of CSR has gone beyond charity or philanthropy. Chief executives around the world increasingly believe that they have a strategic rationale for taking on environmental, social and governance issues. This triple bottom line approach to CSR requires and ensures that companies commit themselves to operate in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner.”
Companies need to bother because the environment is changing. Today, in India, more people can choose the job they want rather than grab the first that’s on offer. And studies show that organisations with a visible sense of ethics have an edge over those who treat CSR as a necessary, but unremunerative, activity.
More important, this CSR needs to be publicised so that potential employees know about it. Several companies have been serving communities for years, but nobody knows about it. They have their own internal publications, but they are not distributed too widely.
Support, which claims to be India’s first CSR magazine, is published out of Calcutta. But, without support, it doesn’t seem to be going places. There needs to be an independent magazine to, if nothing else, educate jobseekers on the business ethics of companies and their CSR initiatives.
“Business ethics is a must,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “CSR used to be earlier an option. Today, it is also becoming a must. The company gives the money and employees give their time. Some even take a CSR break for a year. It is a win-win situation for tomorrow that we need to recognise.”
“Business which is selfish in motivation, narrow in outlook and instrumental in behaviour is rarely a successful business,” says John Kay, author of The Hare and the Tortoise, a collection of business essays.
In the long run, the triple bottom line has a considerable impact on the traditional single bottom line.
THE SOCIAL APPEAL
Employees are attracted to organisations that care
• Almost 90 per cent of respondents say they are more likely to work for an organisation that is considered ethically and socially responsible
• 80 per cent are more likely to work for an organisation that is considered environmentally responsible, a figure that is considerably higher among older age groups
• In deciding where to work, an organisation’s reputation for ethical conduct is considered “very important” by 65 per cent of Gen Y (aged 18-29), 72 per cent of Gen X (30-47), and 77 per cent of baby boomers (48-65)
• 46 per cent of Gen Y would be prepared to forego pay or promotion to work for an organisation with a good reputation, rising to 48 per cent for Gen X and 53 per cent for baby boomers
• In deciding where to work, policies to address global warming are considered “very important” by 31 per cent of Gen Y, rising to 35 per cent among Gen X and 36 per cent for baby boomers.