Strategic Corporate Responsibility and Green Management: Volume 16

COVID-19 not only has impacted adversely the health infrastructure, taking away lives of millions of people but it has also crippled the economy. The worst effected were food supply chain due to restrictions imposed on operations of shops and retail outlets. The consumers were suffering due to lack of supply. Similarly, agriculture produce were getting wasted due to lack of cold storage.

In this case we have proposed how a mobile-based application solution during COVID lockdown can successfully transform the livelihood of rural farmers in the state of Maharashtra (India), a state worst affected by the pandemic.

The technology-integrated supply chain model jointly developed by financial institutions, self-help groups (SHGs) and NGOs has enabled direct selling of fresh produces by rural women farmers to urban large residential societies at their doorsteps. It has provided a solution of municipality waste management by converting the waste to compost, getting them collected and used in the farmlands.

It will help the urban consumers to have the continuous supply of fresh vegetables and fruits available at their doorsteps, and keep a track of transport of foods from farm to fork. The farmers will be able to get better price for their produce. The model will also contribute towards circular economy (CE) through citizen partnership.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Mexican companies is an incipient concept that, in recent years, has had greater participation in the planning of companies' organisational strategies. Similarly, Mexico, as an emerging economy, has managed to remain one of the main economies in Latin America and, together with companies and organised society, has developed public policies that allow compliance with the commitment of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The objective of this work is to analyse the presence of CSR in Mexican companies and its relationship with the SDGs related to economic development, for which a content analysis of the websites of the hundred most important companies in Mexico, according to the 2019 ranking of Expansión magazine, was performed. Finally, we establish that more than half of Mexican companies do not consider aspects related to CSR in their organisational development, contributing to the increase in the percentage of the population lagging behind in education, health and quality food and resulting in an increase in the levels of poverty and extreme poverty among the population of Mexico.

‘Tragedy of the commons’ is a powerful concept to analyse a variety of problems related to environmental sustainability. The commons problem can be solved if individuals behave altruistically. In the business context, this chapter studies the proposition that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can avert the tragedy of the commons by examining one case study in depth: Coca-Cola's bottling operations in Rajasthan, India. In spite of choosing a context favourable to the proposition, the results indicate that CSR does not avert the tragedy of the commons. To address the major environmental challenges, it is essential to develop regulatory regimes with appropriate incentives and ability to enforce sanctions.

CSR, as a social and political movement, misunderstands the modern market economy. The purpose of corporations or publicly traded companies is not to reduce risk or liability but to promote risk. CSR distorts the role of corporate officers (not the distribution of company assets). It misunderstands the role of capital markets, promotes illegal and irresponsible behaviour on the part of some corporations, destabilises national and world economies, promotes the growth of the deep bureaucratic state and leads to crony capitalism. It encourages the false belief in a utopian social technology; inhibits economic and scientific growth; and misplaces the responsibility for failed states and cultural retardation.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been in practice in India even before it was mandated by the Companies Act, 2013. While the objectives of CSR varied from philanthropy, being socially responsible to improving the corporate image, the relationship between financial performance and CSR has not been established. Also only a few companies are aligning their CSR activities with their corporate goals. This chapter builds a framework for integrating business with its CSR activities. The first part of the chapter describes how the concept of CSR evolved over years in general and specifically in India. It also discusses the current status of CSR in India. The second part of the chapter uses a well-known CSR model of e-Choupal to build a framework to integrate CSR with business.

The pandemic has affected people across the world. Businesses have been impacted and in a way have affected the employment scenario worldwide. The skill development initiative is playing a major role in bringing back the affected to the mainstream. Skill development efforts have always been a true solution to income generation especially in context to developing the underprivileged segment of the nations. Numerous countries are enabling skill development through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. India is one such country which has undertaken lot of effort in enabling Skill Development by encouraging impact-based CSR practices. It would be interesting to understand the impact of pandemic on work and how the skillsets are expected to change with the change in the working environment. The chapter mainly focusses in identifying the workplace changes with special reference to Education, Information technology, Retail, Mining and Power Generation sectors in the Indian context. It has also attempted to share the existing skill gap in fulfiling the organisation's expectations and the strategies addressing the skill gap. The chapter also shares best practices in skill development and focusses mainly on understanding the impact of such efforts. The chapter uses case study as a methodology and includes qualitative data analysis of impact interviews. The chapter uniquely attempts to share the policy, programmes, outcomes and major road blocks especially in context to skill development in the Indian scenario and how CSR drive has been instrumental in addressing the skill gap in India.

Global warming and climate change have created an urgency for change in the global system. This change is envisaged through regulations, financing, policies, technology and innovations related to all of them. In this chapter, I argue that such a techno-centric, piecemeal, mechanistic and transactional approach is bound to fail unless we have a spiritual foundation and a sustainable community building strategy. All work of the society ultimately aims for a group of people living together harmoniously. Thus, sustainability transition has to be founded on commonalities of consciousness often found in ‘intentional’ communities – a group of people bounded by a common aspiration/faith and living together. The chapter analyses the case of Auroville, located in Puducherry, India, and its 54-year history to draw conclusions about sustainable community building and discuss its implication for a low-carbon, equitable, net-zero society.

The establishment and nurturing of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is a resourceful input leading to the rapid development of economic and social prospects. MSMEs could be the steroid which the Indian economy needs at this moment. As global competitiveness rises, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is proposed as an impressive strategy to rejuvenate MSME operations and competitiveness. The outcomes of CSR activities can help to a greater extent in improving the survival rate of MSMEs and may offer great opportunities for business competitiveness, locally and globally. It helps in creating and developing the entrepreneurial foundation of the nation by supporting enterprises through supply of raw materials and a range of components required for production. Sustainable entrepreneurship is incomplete and inequitable without being given a standing ovation of the small and medium enterprises as engines of inclusive growth and development.

The prime aim of this chapter is to examine the strategies of CSR in MSMEs and its impact on the cexpansion of these sectors. The chapter also purports that CSR activities are not only contributing to large businesses but also creating evidence in enrichment of the competitiveness of MSMEs.

Basing himself on the premise that present economic progress cannot follow the ‘Business as usual paradigm’ and hope for continued and unlimited progress, the author holds that we need to look into the larger dimensions of growth and development, which include social, environmental and other complex factors. So in this chapter, the author makes some pertinent suggestions for a sustainable growth model inspired by green growth and degrowth.

The first section evaluates the salient features of green growth and its drawbacks. It is followed by a discussion on the notion of degrowth, with its challenge to change the direction of growth (economic, ecological, social and cultural), without which human civilisation, as we know it today, may not survive. Finally, in the concluding chapter, based on these two notions of green growth and degrowth, an all-inclusive and sustainable regrowth model is propounded.

By creating an awareness of the need to shift development goals and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the author argues that we could use economic regrowth strategically and responsibly to make the world more sustainable and viable. Responsible corporates will make their contribution to such an organic, resilient and sustainable regrowth and their CSR activities could be the starting point for this change, without which humanity's future is seriously threatened.

Finally, the author acknowledges that humanity has profited from the tremendous technological and economic progress we have made in the last four centuries, learnt from its mistakes and are ready to reorient ourselves individually and collectively towards a sustainable economic regrowth.

Capacity of a business to deal with the political and economic climate of a region or a nation depends on its financial strength. This ability to influence often remains undisclosed and is put to practice as and when required. The Enron project in India has been able to influence different state governments of Maharashtra, but the details of negotiation have never been made public. The marketing, production and labour departments of an industry often take care of the demands of the international customer and the industry, and are often not viewed as components of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Growth of civil society organisations has led to increasing democratisation in the marginalised and impoverished communities creating local responses to the grand meta-narratives. Yet nation state needs to evolve a new role for itself in this fast changing world. A stable nation providing good governance is thus a basic requirement for developing countries in their attempt to safe guard rights and interests of their poor and marginalised people.