Comments on: Corporate Social Responsibility – Looking from a different angle

By: Jessica Bailey

Jessica Bailey — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:26:18 +0000

hybrid cars are energy efficient compared to diesel or gas powered cars.~.`

By: Molly Moore

Molly Moore — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:25:15 +0000

i already upgraded my family car to Hybrid to help the environment.;;,

By: Sukesh

Sukesh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:59:49 +0000

No offense, but I think this is a bad article on a nice topic.
First of all, the agenda of topic doesn’t come out clearly. First you start with contradictory quote of Friedman and then go on to propose a method that would encourage towards CSR. And then you go on to propose a methodology to measure ‘amount of CSR’ and calling it a factor that will encourage companies towards CSR.
I have few points
1. How goodwill of few people can make a business sustainable is beyond my understanding. To me, ‘sustainable’ is just a keyword which is used just for sake of use. In my view, sustainability can come only when company is making profit under the rule of state. Though yes, CSR is often a cheap shot of marketing employed by many businesses. It may be the case that it can be used as (more) effective tool for marketing, but when has marketing ensured sustainability of business?
2. There is difference between shareholder and consumer. A shareholder would see the ‘profit’ in balance-sheet before investing but a consumer won’t see balance-sheet(or CSR sheet) before buying a product. Consumer only concerns about the product if it fits his requirement which includes cost.
Take the case of hybrid cars, consumer buys hybrid car not only because it is Eco-friendly but more because it saves a lot of fuel consumption(reduces the running cost).
3. Then there is added problem of measuring the CSR. How will you measure CSR: from money invested in a program or the effectiveness of program. If money invested is a criteria how will one know if company is giving authentic figures and if effectiveness is a criteria then effective towards which cause, what demography and what geography are big questions. Point is it is very difficult(read impossible) to measure CSR and then having incentives accordingly.
4. CSR should never be linked with government regulation simply because that would be ‘government intervention in the private business’. CSR activities don’t have fine line. One business party may be more socially responsible towards Hindus and other towards OBCs, now this can lead to political rifts. Fundamentally, getting tax breaks or getting goodwill(for marketing) should never be purpose of CSR. Basically, you proposal of having a government code for CSR is like having a necessary law that a citizen of India will have to make 10% of his income towards donations. Think about it.
5. For pollution like things CSR is not a right term. Carbon rating sort of methods are well for such purposes as they fetch a profit making motive to businesses from trading of carbon-points.

By: ankitz

ankitz — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:50:53 +0000

Yeah even I am aware of the fact that ITC does it. But my idea is to make it a rule which will give impetus to the CSR activities. And tax breaks is an added advantage which govts can exercise if they wish.

The main idea is that if consumers start taking the CSR initiatives or atleast the eco-friendliness of the process behind the product into consideration while choosing a product, the companies will be encouraged to use eco-friendly processes and publicise them among the masses.

By: kaushik

kaushik — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:02:06 +0000

“What can be done is just on the lines of annual reports, we can have a CSR report which will list the initiatives taken and put a value to the impact the initiative had on the intended audience” – actually ITC and some other companies already do this. Secondly, most of the companies do not browbeat / announce their CSR policies to the world, because they like to do it silently, quietly, far from the madding crowd. You can go through ITC / Tata websites to read more about it.

“Also the government can frame regulations which will provide incentives or tax breaks depending on the trustship the company possess” – already, the Government does it, at least in some parts of the globe, as well as in some parts of India. In Uttarakhand, at least, tax breaks / sops to companies for CSR is given.

However, the idea of the article is good.

By: shubham

shubham — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:51:46 +0000

Nice article but very difficult to implement. CSR is a term which has very different meaning to different companies. Most companies do CSR just to gain trust of their consumers I feel. Lets see how this changes over the years ….