LINKING CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)PRACTICES TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS) IN INDIA

India is a vast country with huge size of population and half of the population is living under poverty & inequality. Indias big share of population is struggling for basic amenities and there is a need of collaborative efforts of both government and corporate sector. In India Sustainable Development Goals (here after SDGs) and Corporate social Responsibility (hereafter CSR) are the most powerful tools to deal with social issues. CSR seems like a powerful framework for corporate sector to engage in achieving SDGs to a certain extent. In 2015 India adopted the 17 sustainable development goals with 169 targets and in 2014 CSR policy came with social initiatives. The idea behind linking CSR & SDGs is the thematic social sectors included in both of them.The activities which are included in schedule VII of companies act having lot of overlap with the thematic areas of sustainable development goals and thats why there has seen tremendous potential of both tools to develop a model for sustainable growth. Till date from 2014 to 2020 corporate sector contributed Rs. 59,505 cr. in CSR activities which are directly related to SDGs. So, this paper focus on the concept of leveraging CSR practices because working on CSR practices will ultimately help in achieving SDGs to higher extent.

Coherence in Cross-Sectoral Policies is Imperative for Sustainable Management of Ecosystems

Sustainable management of ecosystems is a priority concern for biodiversity conservation and climate change resilience. India has enacted various policies and statutes governing natural resources that form an integral part of ecosystem governance. The federal structure of India's governance confers the power on vertical (three layers of government) and horizontal (various ministries, departments of government) sectors, to legislate on a variety of environmental issues. Under the Constitution of India, subjects related to the protection of the environment, conservation of biological diversity are governed by the Union List; while subjects of water and land are governed by the State List. Subjects concerning forest and wildlife are governed by the Concurrent List of Schedule VII. Implementation of statutes, governing different environmental subjects, is done by various ministries and departments including local self-governments established by 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976. Activities defined in the policies are implemented through schemes, plans, programmes or projects. As the ecosystem management is a major sector of biodiversity management, the schemes are divided into core and congruent sectors and related sectoral plans. Nexus approach is used to understand the importance of interlinks in the resource governance of India. This research work is ascertaining that conventional fragmented and isolated approach for governance of natural resources is detrimental to the sustainable management of ecosystems. On the background of climate change and increasing international cooperation for sustainable development, attaining coherence in the cross-sectoral policies governing ecosystem management is imperative.

An Empirical Study on Green Initiatives by S&P BSE SENSEX Companies in India at the Outlet of Companies Act, 2013

Considering the necessity to build up corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in general and sustainability in particular under statutory obligations, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India had notified in Companies Act 2013 (section 135) that every public limited company and private limited company having net worth of more than 500 crore or turnover more than 1000 crore or net profit more than 5 crore needs to comply with CSR rules (i.e., contributing 2% or more for the welfare of society following the prescribed guidelines under Schedule VII). The chapter focuses on CSR activities of companies registered under BSE SENSEX and evaluating their current status in CSR activities from the perspective of the broad heading of planet and people. A detailed analysis is done to highlight the current situation of the companies towards sustainable development through corporate sustainability index and statistical tools like Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test to represent the contributions of these companies towards the environmental responsibilities. The study of CSR reveals the endeavors of surveyed companies towards the holistic development covering the noteworthy issue of environmental protection and sustainability; however, a continuous vigil from the regulatory bodies is the need of the hour to ensure that adherence to CSR practices should not only be in mere form but in true spirits.