Social Impact Blog

Mark Kramer participates in a traditional lamp-lighting ceremony to honor the start of the day's workshop.

The whole world is watching: will Indian companies be required by law to contribute a certain percentage of net profits to CSR activities? While much speculation exists abroad, debate and controversy around this proposed requirement can be found in almost every conversation about CSR in India today. The proposed Companies’ Bill  would require that all private companies with a net worth of USD$100M or more, or turnover of USD$200M of more within a given fiscal year, report on whether and how they are spending 2% of their net profits after tax on CSR activities. While India’s Public Sector Enterprises already face many regulations around sustainable development, the Companies’ Bill would set a new precedent for the relationship between the private sector and the Government of India (GoI).

By Fay Hanleybrown, FSG Managing Director, and Melissa Scott, FSG Consultant

This post originally appeared on Forbes India.

Despite recent estimates of “slowed” economic growth of 5-6% for 2012-13, India’s growth continues to outpace most developed countries. One of the key questions on many people’s minds is whether India can effectively train its youth to fuel expected future economic expansion.

There are many reasons why large corporations are challenged to capitalize on shared value opportunities. One that is frequently cited is the inability to look beyond current product lines to rethink solutions to social problems. Some corporations are however, finding ways to overcome this challenge. This is the story of one such corporation and how it overcame the challenge by striking a non-traditional alliance – one with a startup social enterprise.

Everything in India, it seems, occurs at scales unimaginable anywhere else in the world. I suppose after being here for close to a year to set up FSG’s office in Mumbai, I should have come to terms with it. But I continue to be floored. The scales are particularly daunting, unfortunately, when it comes to social issues. Close to 500 million Indians still live in what the World Bank defines as being absolute poverty (less than $1.25 per day), over 2 million Indian children under five years of age die a year, close to a million due to malnutrition alone….and the list goes on. Now consider an even more incredible aspect to this story – and that is how few resources India has available to address its massive social problems. For example, the Indian national education budget ($11.6 billion in 2010-2011) is a mere 1.2% of the US equivalent ($972 billion)! Now, I’m really floored!

While we write and speak about “better ways to solve social problems,” we rarely write about ourselves. Stack it up to our love of ideas or a dash of humility – we’re more likely to share the newest idea related to school turnaround than what goes on behind the scenes at FSG. Yet, one of the questions I’m asked quite often by recruits, clients, and friends is: “what’s it like working at FSG?”