There’s a growing recognition that CSR must evolve beyond traditional philanthropy and compliance-driven approaches. Companies are increasingly embedding CSR into their core business strategies, viewing it not just as a regulatory obligation but as a way to create shared value. This shift is driven by heightened consumer awareness, investor expectations, and the understanding that businesses cannot thrive in failing societies. The emphasis has now shifted to measurable impact, transparency, and aligning CSR initiatives with the SDGs to address global challenges meaningfully.
In her insightful piece, Changing the CSR Lens: From Chasing Compliance to Chasing Social Impact, Gayatri Divecha, Head of Good & Green at Godrej Industries Group, uses the metaphor of a garden to highlight this transformation. This shift, akin to nurturing a garden, is about planting seeds of impact that reach deeper into the community, going beyond the boundaries of regulations. Compliance, she suggests, is the foundation, but true CSR blossoms when driven by a commitment to lasting change. Divecha invites us to rethink CSR by aligning it with core business values, engaging stakeholders, and forming meaningful partnerships to create a lasting social impact. Dive into the full article to explore how this approach can help your organization grow beyond compliance and become a true agent of change.
Changing the CSR Lens: From Chasing Compliance to Chasing Social Impact
Imagine CSR as a garden. Compliance is planting seeds, dutifully watering them and beginning to see the plants sprout into neat rows. But as you witness the greenery, you continue to invest and tend to it. You dug deeper and planted seeds of impact. These seeds took root in the soil of community needs and extended to reach for the sunlight beyond regulations. Slowly your garden transformed with the fragrance of purpose and the bloom of change. When you walk in the garden, you don’t just see the greenery; you can feel it. It’s seeing women too shy speak up and run businesses with the help of CSR programmes; it’s having cleaner air, it’s seeing the hopeful eyes of children who have benefited from your CSR programmes. Compliance is the fence that keeps things orderly, and impact is the fragrant bloom of the CSR garden.
Understanding compliance and impact
Here’s the thing: compliance and impact, especially in CSR, are not mutually exclusive. There will always be forms to fill out, approvals to check off, and reports to be made. Compliance, as much as one would dislike it, is here to stay. This disdain towards a simple practice of good governance is quite telling of how the sector functions in silos. In an impact-driven CSR approach, compliance is not the end goal but a means to an end. We are all accountable to somebody. Everybody is accountable, whether it's someone who heads a CSR department, someone on a CSR team, an individual philanthropist, not-for-profits, or even the government.
CSR demands clear performance indicators against which the organisation’s impact and success can be measured. If you want to create impact, you need processes and metrics in place. A robust audit cycle, financial management system, SOPs, program monitoring, impact evaluation, reporting, and more can be set in motion to convert compliance into milestones on the more significant, arduous journey of creating meaningful impact.
Making impact the guiding force
If an organisation looks at CSR for anything other than impact, they're in the wrong place.
Compliance-driven CSR can be perceived as a tick-box exercise devoid of passion and commitment. It risks being seen as insincere, which can harm a company's reputation rather than enhance it. This narrow focus on compliance can overshadow the broader potential of CSR to drive positive change and innovation.
There’s a difference between impact and meaningful impact. The MCA has clear guidelines for creating an impact that outlives the compliance associated with it.
In 2016, Godrej Consumer Products Limited vowed to assist India’s mission of becoming malaria-free by 2030 and launched Project EMBED, a programme that aims to eliminate morbidity and mortality caused by mosquito-borne diseases.
What started as a pilot took time to scale and become one of the largest public health programmes in India. Since 2016, the programme has reached out to over 28.4 million people in high-risk areas of malaria and dengue. Only through consistency the programme has helped achieved the 80% reduction in malaria cases across 11 districts. Additionally, we observed a 45% increase in testing , with 5,225 villages out of 11,000 villages becoming malaria free by 2024.
Impact takes time and resources, and only the right compliances can ensure sustained and scaled impact. On an organisational level, the conversations usually revolve around a 5-year plan. But impact should be the guiding force. Be it an INR 200 or an INR 20 Crore budget, if we are not leading with impact, we’re just spending an organisation's money to make presentations and file reports. This emphasis on compliance ensures that the impact is not just a one-time event but a sustained and scaled change, reassuring and building confidence in the impacted community.
Cutting to the chase: the HOW to the WHY
Impact needs to be CSR’s north star. The most powerful way to drive it has been to make impact goals a part of our business goals themselves. It is based on this principle of shared value that business, society, and environment are not mutually exclusive; if you impact one, you impact the other. If you pick an area relevant to the business in question, then the business, regardless of CSR budgets, is likely to continue that programme because you're adding value to it.
Some ways you can make the transition from compliance-driven to impact-driven CSR easy is by adopting strategies like:
1. Aligning CSR with Core Business Values: Integrate CSR into the company's mission and vision. Ensure that CSR initiatives are relevant to the business and its stakeholders. For example, Cipla has deeply embedded its CSR initiatives into its core business values through the "Caring for Life" philosophy. One significant project is the Cipla Palliative Care & Training Centre, which provides free palliative care to cancer patients. This initiative aligns with Cipla's core focus on healthcare and pharmaceuticals, ensuring the company not only provides medicines but also holistic care for patients with life-threatening illnesses.
2. Engaging Stakeholders: Involve employees, customers, and community members in CSR planning and execution. Genuine engagement fosters commitment and ensures that initiatives address real needs. The Tata Group has been a pioneer in engaging stakeholders through its CSR activities. The Tata Swach initiative aims to provide affordable and safe drinking water to communities lacking access to clean water. By involving local communities, suppliers, and customers in the development and distribution of Tata Swach water purifiers, they ensurethat their CSR efforts are sustainable and meet the actual needs of the people.
3. Building Partnerships: Collaborate with NGOs, local communities, and other businesses to leverage resources and expertise. Partnerships can enhance the scale and impact of CSR initiatives. ITC’s e-Choupal initiative is a stellar example of building partnerships and maintaining transparency in CSR activities. This project empowers rural farmers by providing them with access to agricultural knowledge, market prices, and best practices through a digital platform. They collaboratewith local communities, government agencies, and technology providers to scale this initiative.
It all boils down to the fact that you cannot build a good business in a not-so-good society. Organisations are prone to fallacies such as doing CSR only for the sake of it or aiming for the low-hanging fruit under the guise of impact. It is imperative to understand what your organisation wants to achieve and do for the society around it. It is even more critical to evaluate whether that is what this society needs.
It's time to transform your CSR strategy from a compliance checklist to a driver of real social impact. Just like nurturing a garden, assess your current CSR initiatives, engage deeply with stakeholders, and embed CSR into your core business values. Start with a clear vision and ambitious goals, and seek partnerships that amplify your efforts. This shift not only cultivates the orderly growth of compliance but also fosters the vibrant bloom of genuine impact, creating a better world and a stronger, more resilient business.
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