Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): My exposure to the term

The write up highlights my experiences during my stay in different organizations and the understanding I developed about different types of CSR during my stay in these organizations.
While I started my journey in the social development sector, I knew nothing about the word CSR, but by now the term has unfolded many times to give me understanding of different terminologies.
Internal CSR:
My first job taught me about CSR from a distance, I worked in a different unit and there were colleagues working on CSR. The first observation or understanding was that of CSR being a lucrative field where one can have all the best facilities as a job. You stay in good hotels, entertain all the facilities and have fun while on job. This led me to approach my bosses and I shared my eagerness to work on at least one assignment of CSR, to which they agreed and gave me a chance to work on the same. The very next day the team leader gave me a huge bundle of interview schedule and other reading stuff and asked me to come prepared by the next day. Which very painfully I did and the driving force was all the lucrative facilities I am going to get while on assignment. I did the reading and then there was training for me and other beginners around the issue of CSR and the processes of the assignment and my responsibilities during the same. It seemed more work than I was doing while I did training but the driving force was there!
The day came and we boarded a morning 6:15 flight to Bangalore where the assignment was to be done. We reached the city by 8:30 in the morning and the pick-up was at 9:45. We spent 10-15 minutes in the hotel room which as expected was a great hotel in Bangalore. We spent three days in this hotel and the time spent in the hotel was less than 24 hours that means we only came to the hotel to sleep and the remaining time was work!
The process begun with an orientation of the manufacturing unit and then several interactions with the staff, workers on the machines, the management of the company, accounts department and HR department, enquiring several components such as: all legal compliances, Health and Safety, employment roll, payment systems etc. I started getting relaxed with the feeling of the day being over. The moment we moved out of the company the team leader announced that we will be going for offsite interviews in the evening. Hardly after two hours break we were working again, this time not at the company but the places where the workers lived. The process was an eye opener as we spent time in finding the addresses of the workers, got hold of some and interviewed them about the company and their work. By the time we were back to the hotel, it 11:00 in the night and then happened the de-briefing of the day. We went to bed at 1:00 and again by 8:30 AM we were at breakfast lounge to plan for the day.
By the time we completed the assignment I had realized that not everything is as green as I had thought in the beginning of the assignment. It had been the most hectic assignment I had taken up by that time. The pressure to complete the work in a stipulated time was immense without a chance of error.
This was what many of us know as SOCIAL AUDIT process in any company. I realized by this time that it’s not about staying in good hotels and having fun but it is actually a well planned chain of activities that leads to an expected set of results, which indeed is very intense. This is what I realized as Internal CSR where the company makes sure that it is following all the legal as well as social compliances, engages and empathizes with its employees and makes sure that the business is socially responsible by paying attention to the needs of internal stakeholders.
Socially & Environmentally Responsible Business:
Time passed and I moved to a new organization. By this time I had developed a decent understanding of the word CSR and other related terminologies. The term Socially Responsible Business is what I came across while worked in one of the leading social development organization in India. This organization had a different take on CSR, where it believed that technologies and innovation in technologies are one of the most important tools for eradicate poverty. This organization believed in innovating new technologies for livelihood and enterprise development. The term Innovation, Incubation and Implementation were the driving factors for this organization. Where one part of the organization spent time in innovating new technologies, the other incubated it and then a team worked dedicatedly to market it and identify new entrepreneurs to spinoff the enterprises. Major focus was made to ensure that the technologies are compatible with nature and does not cause harm to nature at the same time are low cost and has the ability to attract more and more small and medium entrepreneurs. As we all know by now that in India around 80% jobs are created in the small and medium enterprises, keeping this in mind this organization worked towards business models that are low cost, socially and environmentally responsible. This organization exposed me to a lot of good participatory approaches that leads to identification of these technologies and several analysis techniques to ensure that we remain focused and create socially & environmentally responsible businesses.
External CSR:
The recent experience of working for a leading infrastructure development company in India brought me a chance to work on the component of external CSR. This company had formed a foundation that work on the agenda of external CSR and works across the country. The guiding principle is to extend a hand of help to the people staying in the neighborhood and to the people who have been affected by the infrastructure development. There are many views some good and some against the whole agenda of external CSR. Many of us believe that external CSR is nothing but an act of advertising for the company. When I joined this group, I too had the similar kind of pre-conceived notion. But, while I stayed in the organization for sometime things started unfolding and I realized the reason of my pre-conceived notion and of many others. One needs to understand the very fact that today CSR is a part of mainstream business. For an infrastructure development company, if it is only CSR that is functional then I am sure there will be many eyes trying to find out the fault. I found that while working in the field of infrastructure development it is very much essential that one makes a crystal clear difference between two terminologies i.e. R&R and CSR. Once there is a dedicated team that works on all the legal issues related to R&R such as: Land acquisition, Making sure the disbursement of compensation as per the R&R policy of the country, it becomes easier to segregate the CSR from the whole process. The same has been the case in terms of the company I worked. They have a dedicated team that works on the R&R and there is a separate foundation that works on social development. The driving principle for R&R is ensure the infrastructure development and work towards company’s benefit whereas the agenda for CSR is non-business, to work on the social development agenda in these communities without bringing business or company’s profit in between. At this point it is also very important to mention that how important is it for the leader of the organization to remain dedicated to the cause he/she believes in to make sure the R&R and CSR are working on separate agenda and not mixed to confuse the employees as well as the outsiders.

Convergence @ Work

Very recently while working for TARA Livelihood Academy, the organization which is involved in facilitating value chain development process in partnership with ILO for Dairy sector in Jabalpur, we had an excellent experience about how convergence if facilitated well can actually work. The process began in September 2009 and is in the stage of implementation and follow ups. A team from ILO and TLA visited Jabalpur for follow ups of the ongoing activities. One such green intervention has been production of green fodder in Jabalpur. As it was evident from the VCD report that the demand for green fodder in Jabalpur is much more than it is produced within the location which ultimately affects the quality of milk and milk products.
Interactions with Agricultural University opened the door of possibilities as the dean shared the willingness of the university to provide technical support to individuals or groups taking up production of the green fodder. Next in line the team met dairy association and explored the possibility of entrepreneur’s willingness to take up this activity. The dairy association felt that the activity if taken at the village farmers level would be more effective and possibility of creating jobs will be higher. The association gave commitment to buy the produced green fodder from the village farmers. A farm visit was organized by the agricultural university where representatives of dairy association and TLA-ILO team visited and got inputs from the agricultural scientists.
An interaction with the NREGS officer in District Rural Development Authority opened the glare of opportunities. The NREGS officer informed the team that there are watershed groups in the countryside locations in Jabalpur where groups of farmers are willing to take up production of fodder. For this purpose the NREGS department agreed to link this activity under the waste land development programme of the district authorities. He raised the issue of technical support to which the team shared the commitment of the dean agricultural university.
Followed was a meeting involving NREGS officer, Agriculture University and the TLA-ILO team. It was agreed by all the stakeholders to take up this activity. A field visit was agreed upon and visit to the villages with watershed groups were made. The NREGS officer made a presentation to these farmers and a detailed process of production of green fodder was made.
Process on production included:
- Identification of willing farmer’s group
- Identification of waste land
- Identification of irrigation facility
- Costing and look out for funds
- Soil testing
- Land cleaning and plaughing
- Seed identification and production
- Market linkage and sale of fodder
The present status of this initiative is as follows:
Two farmer’s groups are taking up the production of green fodder under waste land development programme. Farmers identification, land identification and soil testing has taken place. The NREGS officer has sanctioned an amount of 10 lakhs for two locations. Agricultural scientists have completed soil testing and are to suggest the farmers about the kinds of fodder.
The TLA-ILO team further worked on the market linkage aspect and met several buyers of the fodder nearby these villages. Several options for selling the produced fodder has been made and shared with the farmers as well as the dairy owners.
The crux of this intervention is that the initiative towards bringing more than one government offices and departments has worked excellently in this situation and it has opened door for many such interventions. Simple interactive sessions with the presence of all related government departments has brought significant results and we hope to achieve many more such results in future.