81% companies consider education as the top core area for CSR activities in India: Mercer Survey

Anumeha Chaturvedi, ET Bureau Nov 13, 2014, 03.18PM IST

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(The survey was conducted…)

NEW DELHI: A survey conducted by HR consulting firm Mercer titled 'Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Programs, Policies and Practices Survey,' reveals that about 73% employers in India stated they have a CSR sustainability policy in place while 17% which are undertaking CSR activities without clear guidelines plan to formalise a policy in the next two years. 81% companies consider education as the top core area for CSR activities in India.

The survey was conducted across 40 organisations in India, with respondents based out of different cities in India and from various sectors.

The increasing importance of CSR was indicated by a majority of respondents, 75% stating they feel that CSR has become more important at their company over the past two years. In fact, 81% feel that it is an extremely important component for business strategy.

"The importance of CSR/sustainability is seeping deep into Indian companies as three out of four companies in India already have or are planning to form a core team dedicated to CSR/sustainability within the next one or two years," Shanthi Naresh, Mercer India business leader, informations solutions said a in a statement. "With dedicated teams in place and companies stating that employee volunteering will be involved in their corporate citizenship projects, India is surely striding in the right direction down the sustainability path," she added.

The difference between the Indian and similar global survey results was that nearly 44% of Indian companies stated that they have a dedicated team responsible for CSR compared to only around one-quarter of companies globally having a dedicated team. The most common function to hold part-time responsibility for CSR/sustainability is Human Resources (HR), both in India and globally. However, in India, a significantly higher number of companies held HR responsible for CSR/sustainability (90%), compared to the global result of 69%.

Only about one-third of Indian organisations stated that they issue an integrated annual report on their CSR activities compared to the global results where almost half the participating companies worldwide stated that they provide an integrated annual report on CSR, presenting an area for improvement for companies in India. Further, quantifying the business value of CSR/sustainability initiatives is among the top challenged faced by participating companies in India.

The survey respondents identified three core areas around which most of the current CSR activities in the country are based on: education (81%), community-based development (64%) and environmental sustainability within the company (61%). The majority of companies conducted their CSR/sustainability initiatives by partnering with a local, independent non-profit organisation (78%), whereas 17% of companies stated that they work with their company's own non-profit organisation. Over a quarter of participating companies indicated that they are integrating social and environmental priorities into their business models to generate shared value.