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Govt mulls making CSR tradeable
The Times of India, Feb 18, 2010 |
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The government is looking at making corporate social responsibility (CSR) more than mere lip service, toying with the idea of converting it into a tradeable commodity just like carbon credits.
Corporate affairs minister Salman Khurshid mooted the idea at a conference of industry chamber FICCI and asked India Inc to consider the proposal. He said the first effort should be to identify a method to quantify CSR activities. "And then you should debate the possibility of establishing a CSR exchange to deal in CSR credits, akin to trading in carbon credits," the minister said.
The minister said there was an urgent need to internalise CSR as an ethical way of doing business and making profits. "CSR is about the way we conduct our business, and not about keeping something apart for community welfare.... If there is a business that is inherently destructive and unwholesome, a way has to be found to offset the negativity of that business," the minister said.
The industry reacted positively to Khurshid's suggestion. "India needs not just growth, but inclusive growth and the corporate sector is increasingly concerned with and supportive of inclusive growth as much an economic imperative as it is socially desirable," FICCI president Harsh Pati Singhania said.
DS Rawat, secretary general of Assocham, said trading of CSR would be an incentive for companies to actively look at such programmes. "This mechanism will encourage corporates to voluntarily take up CSR programmes. We need more corporates to come forward and carry out CSR prograames," Rawat said.
Rajashree Birla, chairperson of FICCI Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence, also welcomed the proposal and said there was a need to move CSR activities from the backburner of "cheque book philanthropy" to mainstream business.
It may be mentioned here that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is working on a new set of rules on CSR, making it a must for companies to report on social, environmental and economic initiatives.
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