Business is a powerful—likely the mostpowerful—engine of social change.

How to manage and harness this

influence for sustainable and inclusivegrowth was the point of departure for

CII’s first National Summit on CSR:

Making CSR an ActionableBusiness Agenda (June 14-15,

Chenna i ) .

The Summit was inaugurated by Mr

Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons on 14th

June 2007 at the Chennai Convention

Centre, Nandambakkam, Chennai.

From drawing board to boardroom to

shop-floor, six panels comprised oftwenty-seven business leaders from Tata

to TVS, Intel to IBM, Hindustan Lever

and Starbucks shared their hard-wonexperiences in CSR alongside social

entrepreneurs from leading civil society

organizations (CSOs) at the CSRsummit. These panels discussed and

debated the How-to as well as the Why?

of company-society engagement.

CII’s forthcoming Centre of Excellence

for Responsive Corporate Citizenship,announced by Venu Srinivasan,

Managing Director of Sundaram-Clayton

Ltd, will serve as a staging point forcompany-society engagement,

consulting, capacity-building and

encouraging a broader corporate cultureof volunteerism in India.

“CSR Must Address

India’s Silent Crisis”: Mr Ram

Mr N Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, in his keynote address said that

India’s high-level economic growth had not yielded positive results on

the social development front. Despite the 9 percent GDP growth,

several development indices, such as healthcare and education, had

not improved significantly, he said. Referring to the distress in rural

India, he urged the industry to address ‘the silent crisis’ of the country,

where millions of farmers are living under the poverty line.

Mr Ram said, “Education is the elementary resource of all modern

society, but, excepting in a few states, there is no law to make primary

education compulsory. Though India had a magnificent start in endow-

ments for higher educational institutions, the country seems to have

fallen behind over time with gradual decrease in grants.” He appealed

to industry and industrial associations to adopt schools.

Mr Venu Srinivasan, Chairman, CII National Summit on CSR 2007, and

Managing Director, Sundaram Clayton Limited, in his address said that

the benefits of the Government’s welfare schemes did not always reach

the target groups. Industrial houses could help here, he said.

Mr Srinivasan said industry had expertise in man management, financial

management and business planning and could easily provide the

missing ingredients of leadership and organisation and establish the

“last mile connectivity” to take the benefits to the people. Mr Ratan

Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons was present during the deliberations of the

inaugural session.

Industry Asked to Partner with Government onWelfare Schemes

Ratan Tata Inaugurates

National Summit on CSR

End

CSR must be a part of core cultureCSR must be communicated both inside and outside the firm, and

benchmarked. “We must learn, partner and scale to make this

viable and visible,” said Mr Frank Jones, President, Intel

Technology India Ltd.

Mr Jones said that CSR must be part of core culture, from top to

bottom, and a part of core strategies. The top, he said, should

“enable, enthuse, support and engage the experts at all levels

(particularly our employees who are part of the communities in

which development initiatives are ongoing).” Leadership should

provide visible energy and support. In India especially, retaining

and attracting talent is a tremendous challenge, and this is where

CSR and HR connect.

Mr Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, in his

address said “Over time the corporation has achieved something no

human has – it is a perpetual being, but with all the protections and

abilities of individual citizens (property protection under law, free

speech, etc.).” It has become increasingly difficult to curb the

power of this very privileged individual, he said, and we must look

“CSR- From Bolt-On to Built-In: The Way Ahead”which to do business such that

enterprises are created to generate

public goods alongside private goods

on a much larger scale. This Session

helped develop tangible and intangible

value generation models across diverse

issues. Mr Anant Nadkarni, Vice

President - Group CSR, Tata Council for

Community Initiatives was the Session

Facilitator; Mr G R K Reddy,

Managing Director, Marg Constructions

Ltd; Ms Shakti Sharma, Chief, Social

Services & Family Initiatives, Tata Steel,

Mr Ravi Santhanam, Managing

Director, Hindustan Motors Ltd, and Ms

Rati Forbes, Director, Forbes Marshall

Pvt Ltd, were the discussion leaders

and mentors for the session.

again and reevaluate the

responsibilities of this “creature of the

social polity.”

The old way of relating to society, Mr

Maira pointed out, was to create

wealth then distribute a portion of the

proceeds – “insufficient and

perhaps…even dangerously

inadequate as a way for corporations

to relate to the world.” How you

produce and what you produce are

equally or more important. He

concluded by calling upon business

and society to push for fair and tough

measures to keep the unscrupulous

from cheating and undermining

progress in corporate citizenship.

In his address, KA Chaukar,

Managing Director, Tata Industries Ltd

and Chairman, Tata Council for

Community Initiatives, said that for 100

years, the House of Tata has regarded

corporate responsibility as a process

rather than a burden. Tata and other

companies who have built bonds with

the community have benefited in a

number of ways including safety of the

companies’ operations and employees.

Their safety is more assured, he said,

than it is with those who are seen as

exploiters. It’s not always easy to

measure the bond that results between

the company and community, he said,

but you know when it’s not there.End

End

This Session dealt with practical workouts on how CSR is

becoming actionable at a Company level. It attempted to finalise a

checklist of actions and levels at which processes are built into the

business. It focused on creating new alternative business models,

ways of making and distributing profits, and changing the way in

“There is an urgent need to re-define

the logic of businesses from eco-

nomic wealth creation, as a sole

measure of success, to a new

concept of total wealth creation. We

must build great business that

should serve not only its stakehold-

ers but also the community and the

world at large,” said Mr Tex Gun-

ning, Group Vice President, South-

east Asia & Australasia, Unilever

Limited, Singapore.

In his valedictory address,Mr

Gunning said that the role of busi-

nesses is not just about being

responsible to its own shareholders

but it should also act as agents of

change in solving the most pressing

challenges – such as poverty,

inequalities, etc - of the human race

and our planet.

Mr Gunning called for redefinition of

leadership – leaders who will build

truly meaningful organizations. “We

can either act now, out of choice, or

“We must build great business that should serve not

only its stakeholders but also the community and

the world at large. We can either act now, out of

choice, or have change forced on us. We can either

evolve, or dissolve - Meaningful Businesses.”

have change forced on us. We can

either evolve, or dissolve,” he said.

He said that the developing world

also presents great opportunities

for total wealth creation. There are

over 2 billion untapped consumers

in the developing Asian countries,

over 45% of whose population are

under 25 years of age. The average

economic growth of China and

India is expected to be 7.5% and

7% respectively for the next years,

whereas, the developed economies

of USA and Western Europe would

have just 3.3% and 2% of eco-

nomic growth respectively.

The business can have a tremen-

dously positive impact, he said,

provided it redefines the logic of

economic wealth creation. “The root

cause of the problem is the de-

structive logic that economic

wealth creation is the prime

measure of success, the sole

measure of progress and the key

driver of happiness,” he said.

“Move from Economic Wealth Creation to

Total Wealth Creation”: Mr Tex Gunning

The root cause of

the problem is the

destructive logic

that economic

wealth creation is

the prime measure of

success, the sole

measure of progress

and the key driver

of happiness

- Tex Gunning

For all the intrigue and good intentions,

declared Gopal Srinivasan, Director

of TVS Electronics Ltd., in his conclud-

ing remarks to the summit, there is little

doubt that apart from a handful of

exceptional cases, there has been a

“dissonance between proclamation

and practice.” Innovative, rigorous

CSR addresses the paradox and

delivers real value, he pointed out.

Gopal Srinivasan

Director

TVS Electronics Ltd.

End

End