CB BureauPanasonic India’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) is
aligned with the new clause in Companies Act 2013 and the company has built a
reliable monitoring system to measure the impact of its social investments, affirmed
Manish Sharma, managing director and member of board, Panasonic India, in
conversation with CauseBecause.
Sharma confirmed that Panasonic had, for many years, been
investing in the Indian development sector through various initiatives in
association with non-profits as well as in collaboration with government
authorities.
Asked if the company had to re-invent their CSR policy and
start new initiatives as per the new law, Sharma said they only had to re-strategize
a few ongoing activities as the overall purpose of all their initiatives was
anyway in sync with the government’s development agenda.
When questioned about the company’s intent with regard to branding
and image management while investing in social ventures, Sharma said, ‘Investments
towards social causes have always been made by the company at a global level and
return on such investments is only looked at in terms of the impact that they
can make at the grassroots of the areas where we work. The motive of these
practices is not marketing or business development but the fundamental growth
of communities around us – this ultimately makes our business valuable,
appreciable and, of course, sustainable.’ He insisted that globally Panasonic was
known for their clear focus on sustainability and all their activities in India
were in sync with their ‘global philosophy’.
Sharma engaged in this conversation while formally
announcing the beginning of Phase 2 of Panasonic’s ‘100 thousand solar lantern
project’ in Delhi. The company has joined hands with six non-government
organizations – World Health Partners, Plan International, World Vision India,
Care India, Japan Lutheran Evangelical Association and SARD – who will ensure
distribution of 4,000 solar lanterns in off-grid areas (with no electricity
supply) in Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana. The first
phase of the project was launched last year and the company had distributed
5,000 solar lanterns.
Talking to CauseBecause about the overall CSR focus of
Panasonic India, Radhika Kalia, who heads the company’s CSR, said that their
CSR primarily revolved around education, empowerment of the underprivileged, and
healthcare. She clarified that all their programmes were conceptualized and
implemented in a manner that they could become self-sustaining over time.
Asked if it was challenging to find reliable non-profits,
Kalia said that they had set up a mechanism to identify and associate with
organizations. The company goes through the track record – impact analysis,
implementation capability, scaling-up capacity, etc. – of each organization,
while an in-house team comprising managers and field officers constantly
monitor and report all their programmes. Questioned if she saw any challenge in
filing the mandatory CSR report in India while balancing the same with Global
Reporting Initiative guidelines, Kalia said there was no challenge as their
activities were in sync with both. However, she affirmed that the company would
have to come up with two reports: their regular sustainability report as per
the G4 guidelines of GRI, and the CSR report as per the new clause in Companies
Act 2013.
Kalia also informed that the company had a CSR body called ‘corporate
citizens group’, which focused on environment and spreading awareness about it among
children. The company has also associated with UNESCO in order to sensitize the
world about heritage buildings.
Talking about the importance of joint initiatives for deeper
impact, Kalia referred to the company’s plant in Jhajjar, Haryana, where
several large companies from the area as well as other stakeholders joined
hands with the district commissioner and created a CSR society. The society
channelizes CSR funds of all companies towards common initiatives for overall
development of the area. The governing body of the society includes
representatives of companies, locals and government officials.
Panasonic EcoSkool, Panasonic Shakti, Rati Chatra and Young
Learners are some CSR initiatives from Panasonic. More can be read about these
initiatives and other sustainability practices in the company report.
Click
here to read Panasonic India’s sustainability report