Creating 'Shared Value' with communities is paramount for businesses: Sashidhar Vempala, CSR Head, Pernod Ricard India

Wine maker Pernod Ricard India recently partnered with WWF to save wildlife in Assam. The company has expanded its presence in India over the last few years. The multi-national company has also made Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) core of its business growth. In the past three years, the company has expanded its footprints from 2 Plants to 24 Plants with 240% increase in spending to reach the most underserved regions in the vicinity of its operations. In this interview with TheCSRUniverse.com, Sashidhar Vempala, Head - CSR, Sustainability & Communications, Pernod Ricard India talks on the CSR vision of the company. He also speaks on how the company’s recent partnership with WWF, its COVID relief initiatives and much more. Scroll down this page to read his full interview. Interview highlights When it comes to creating social impact, we believe that the industry does not matter, and every business is on an equal footing to create value for the society. The three aspects that bind strategic CSR for us are Purpose, Programs and Partnerships. Building credible relationships with implementation partners is critical to materializing vision and purpose for any organization hoping to do good. We need to harness the power of collaborations not only by means of NGO and Public-Private partnerships, but also with corporate-corporate partnerships with the shared vision and roadmap to transform local geographies India, being the first country to mandate CSR has set a global precedent for business accountability to society. There is scope to be more competitive to create greater accountability, implementation and impact transparency. Interview of Shashidhar Vempala, Head - CSR, Sustainability & Communications, Pernod Ricard India Q: You recently partnered with WWF to save wildlife in Assam. You are also running a few scholarship programmes. What drives CSR thoughts at Pernod Ricard? A: At Pernod Ricard India, people are at the heart of everything that we do. Supporting our communities with socio-economic development and protecting biodiversity and natural resources is a core value deeply embedded in our business. With the right blend of local needs, national priorities and global goals (SDGs) integrated in our business priorities, we strive to steward transformational grassroots growth by focusing on water resource management, sustainable agriculture, education, livelihood generation, healthcare, and empowering social change makers. We envision our communities as our partners in co-creating Shared Value and we measure our growth, not only through the economic value we generate but also through the value and gains, that we create for our society. We believe that a strategic approach to CSR is paramount to bring society and business back together. The three aspects that bind strategic CSR for us are Purpose, Programs and Partnerships. A strong purpose helps us define the impact to be created, with long-term programs establishing a strong roadmap for impact, which are supported by credible partnerships to extract sustained value with collaborative efforts. Q: What is the outcome you see out of your partnership with WWF? A: We are committed to act as corporate guardians of India’s natural resources to reduce degradation, stop biodiversity loss, and protecting and restoring one of the most important natural resources - water. Unprecedented biodiversity loss due to increased climate and water uncertainty and degenerative agricultural practices has led to large scale fragmentation, loss of green cover and increase in extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Pernod Ricard India Foundation’s WAL (Water, Agriculture, Livelihoods) program engages more than 30,000 farmers across 7 states in the country to promote community-level biodiversity conservation with regenerative natural resource management, soil-health fortification and mosaic

Creating 'Shared Value' with communities is paramount for businesses: Sashidhar Vempala, CSR Head, Pernod Ricard India

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Creating 'Shared Value' with communities is paramount for businesses: Sashidhar Vempala, CSR Head, Pernod Ricard India

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