The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Focus is on corporate social responsibility'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 09, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Focus is on corporate social responsibility'

Staff Reporter

It is important to business and is an extension of corporate services: expert

Bangalore: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has assumed a lot of importance in the recent past, Anant G. Nadkarni, vice-president (CSR), Tata Council for Community Initiatives, has said.

He was speaking at a workshop on CSR organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Thursday.

The workshop was organised to address the challenges and opportunities of CSR programme, how the managements could integrate CSR into their business and about the employee engagement in the programme. Mr. Nadkarni said that CSR was still in the mode of charity. "CSR is important to business. It is an extension of corporate services," he said.

He said that CSR and sustainable development were moving forward in the same direction. Sustainability was a core value and a driving force.

CSR came to the forefront when it was noticed that there were companies that were bigger than countries; when the top three rich people in the world owned wealth that was more than the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 34 poorest countries, he said.

Mr. Nadkarni said the new economy was a key CSR driver today, now that capitalism was at the crossroads.

The basic challenges that the companies faced these days were with trying to make CSR a culture within, and with choosing the right kind of entrepreneurial leadership that would deliver the desired results.

"J.N. Tata, founder of the Tata Group, is truly an inspiration in this regard. It was he who said: `In a free enterprise, the company is not just another stakeholder in business, but in fact the very purpose of its existence,'" Mr. Nadkarni said.

He said that the companies should include non-financial goals in their annual reports and specify the vision for the future. "Pollution prevention must come first, followed by clean technology, product stewardship, and sustainable vision," he added.

D. Kavarana, general manager, ITC Windsor Sheraton Hotel and Towers, spoke about the CSR initiatives taken up by the five-star hotel here. He said the hotel had employed 12 differently abled persons and was committed to rainwater harvesting.

Manoj Chakravarti, vice-president (corporate affairs), Titan Industries Ltd., and Sindhu M. Cauveriappa, manager (community relations), Intel Technologies Ltd., addressed the second session.

In the third session, representatives of three companies (Bangalore Medical Services Trust and Research Institute, IBM India Ltd. and WeP Peripherals Ltd.) shared their CSR initiatives, its dynamics and relevance to the companies.

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