A career marketer, Sheena Kapoor is Head – Marketing, Corporate Communications and CSR at ICICI Lombard. While marketing remains her core strength, she says it’s the CSR portfolio is very close to her heart because she feels that she can play a small but vital role in giving back to society.
Trends in CSR
Talking about the key trends shaping in the CSR landscape, Sheena Kapoor says that there has been growth in the industry from a compliance perspective. Apart from companies having to spend 2% of their net profits from the previous three years on CSR, more companies are taking CSR seriously, and there has been an organic growth of about 12% to 15% in the overall corpus. Close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore goes into CSR programmes.
She says that a large part of this is concentrated in four areas: education, livelihood, healthcare, and rural development, with about 75% focused on these programmes. The rest is spread across other areas like senior citizen care, domestic abuse victims, child abuse victims, vocational training, and afforestation. She says that another big trend is that with the ESG agenda being a mainstay in boardrooms, CSR is becoming a main agenda item. A lot of CSR programmes now focus on companies becoming responsible citizens and taking steps towards building a sustainable, greener world for future generations. Companies are taking sustainability much more seriously and are taking both small and big measures.
Challenges in implementation
Sheena Kapoor says that companies mean well, but sometimes there is a gap in implementation. This happens because the programmes are too fragmented, which means they do not build scale or have a long-term impact. It does not bring about a change by impacting lives where one can see a tangible difference. A tangible difference can only happen when a company is invested for a long time and aligns the entire machinery around it. Companies need to choose programmes that are synergistic with their competencies, capabilities, business, and stakeholders to leverage their standing and build long-term impact and visibility.
She says that often, CSR is treated as a compliance checkbox. Companies take on programmes just to meet compliance needs, without a focus on long-term sustainable impact in a particular location or programme where they can invest year after year. A compounding effect comes only when one can invest in a certain programme and build scale into it. Another issue is that the metrics are more about volume and value rather than long-term impact and scale. A third issue is that many NGO partners, who are doing good work, are sometimes unable to implement the intended strategy. Besides, there is also a geographical complication because a lot of the CSR investments are concentrated in urban areas where offices or industries are located. Investment does not go down to tier 3 and tier 4 towns and villages where support is actually needed.
Policy recommendations
Sheena Kapoor says that the CSR regulation is exhaustive, but from a policy standpoint, it would help if impact measures and metrics were built in. More accountability and transparency are needed, where companies would need to show long-term sustainable impact.
Policy recommendations could nudge certain sectors and companies in certain industries to complement each other in synergistic areas and bring the entire sector together, which would bring a lot more impact.
She gives an example from the retail, apparel, or textile industries, saying that if the CSR programmes were aligned with the lives and work of artisans or tribals, and supported by communities, they would benefit from large-scale impact. This would be synergistic with their business and would create sustainable, long-term impact with scale.
Maximising impact
Sheena Kapoor says that to maximise the impact of their CSR spend, companies need to ask themselves a few questions. First, what problem are they trying to solve? Second, is there an opportunity for the company to play an active role? Third, will the investment be sustainable and create long-term impact? Fourth, have they added a long-term window and perspective to the strategy? Companies need to bring in the right implementing partners and also activate the entire ecosystem of stakeholders.
CSR’s role in India’s development
She says that India is now the fourth-largest economy and will be the third largest in the next few years. India is close to reaching the $5 trillion mark and could become a $20 to $30 trillion economy in the years to come. This growth can only be sustained if the entire population is uplifted on multiple aspects. CSR has a very integral and crucial role in it.
Sheena Kapoor says that some challenges to consider are a long-term horizon and a clear focus on long-term sustainable impact. There needs to be a clear metric of the tangible difference it will make to individuals or communities. Companies that take on CSR programmes need to be aware of these factors. There is a need for more coalitions, collaborations, and stakeholders joining hands on synergistic programmes, which will make a long-term, sustainable impact for India.
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