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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to the ethical, social, and environmental responsibility that companies have toward their stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, and the environment. The concept of CSR has gained significant momentum in recent years, as consumers, investors, and governments increasingly demand that companies take responsibility for their actions and operate in a way that benefits society and the planet. Companies adopting CSR is a virtuous practice but to know how they have impacted society is equally important. Impact Assessment is a rigorous process involving literature review, stakeholder consultation, primary and secondary data collection, analysis, and providing recommendations.
On January 22, 2021, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs amended the earlier CSR Rules and notified the companies to make impact assessment mandatory for companies undertaking CSR activities and CSR expenditure above a specified threshold. The move aimed to create accurate parameters in assessing the impact of CSR activities by shifting the focus from expenditure alone to impact assessment and improving the quality of CSR projects while enhancing accountability and transparency. Impact assessments promote a long-term outlook on CSR initiatives and help corporates develop their CSR programs strategically. These assessments, for corporates, serve the purpose of evaluating the impact of their initiatives and preparing for scaling horizontally to other geographies.
There is a plethora of effective impact assessment frameworks, but no one-size-fits-all when it comes to choosing the apt approach. Out of a large variety of assessment frameworks, the one that suits the project will depend on various factors like the size of the CSR program, project type, duration, factors affecting change, and the number of stakeholders involved.
One such CSR initiative by a company was a plantation drive. The project was implemented from 2020-2021. Around ten lakh trees were planted in nine states of India across 13 districts. The project primarily focused on reclaiming degraded lands as primary forests, strengthening forest-based livelihood opportunities for local communities, protecting the habitat of endangered species, uplifting rural communities, combating air pollution, and rejuvenating water bodies and rural landscapes.
For physical verification of the plantation, four states were shortlisted namely Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, and Uttarakhand. To measure the changes that have come about on account of the project, a mixed-method approach was adopted. OECD-DAC criteria were used to do impact analysis focusing on key areas- environment, social characteristics, economic benefits, governance, and sustainability.
Among the 201 respondents that responded, 122 (61%) were women, and 79 (40%) were men. The proportion of women was higher as the project consciously sought greater involvement of women. In all plantations survivability of 60% or more was observed. The process of plantation unfolded differently in line with the specificities of the sampled states. In three states except for Uttarakhand, the task of nursery development was outsourced to vendor agencies or local NGOs. For Puri, Odisha the entire process was outsourced to a local NGO.
After physically verifying the plantations and analyzing the qualitative and quantitative responses of the community, it can be concluded that there were environmental, social, and economic benefits of the plantation. The environmental benefits included cleaner air, more sightings of bird and animal species near the plantation site, improvement in soil quality, and carbon reduction. The social cohesion during the entire process of plantation process was also strong since the inception phase of the project. There was high community engagement and involvement of EWS and women. The plantation was a sigh of relief for the beneficiaries as it was implemented during the COVID-19 phase and when people had no source of earnings, it provided a ray of hope and a meager income that would support their meals. The community is also aware of the livelihood benefits the plantation would provide in the future and hence has taken ownership and responsibility of the plantation with full rigor and excitement.
CSR Impact Assessment has been a crucial step in the proper implementation of the project. It ensured the project accountability and transparency and simultaneously effective and efficient implementation of the objectives of the project. However, it had its own challenges like no donor visibility, no record keeping, no monitoring mechanism, no standardization of processes, no baseline data, insufficient capacities of the implementing partner and a compliance-based model of the project. The report has been presented with certain recommendations to overcome these challenges.
