CSR Trends For 2023

Business Models as Drivers of the SDGs 🌎 Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires more than commitment—it demands viable models that integrate social and environmental value into core business operations. Across sectors, companies are already piloting and scaling solutions that contribute directly to global priorities. These include clean energy leasing for low-income areas, digital health tools for underserved populations, and inclusive platforms that connect small producers to formal markets. Access remains a common thread. Whether through vocational e-learning, low-cost water purification systems, or mobile connectivity for remote regions, business models are helping close persistent service gaps. At the infrastructure level, innovation is driving systemic improvements: smart urban planning, circular retail platforms, eco-design consultancies, and waste-to-resource processing are just a few examples of how core services can evolve. Technology is enabling scale. Traceability tools, digital marketplaces, and remote diagnostics are being applied to food systems, education, health, and employment—amplifying reach and lowering barriers. Circularity is gaining traction across product and service design. Models promoting reuse, bulk sales, and lifecycle consulting are reducing environmental impacts while tapping into changing consumer preferences. Partnership is emerging as a critical enabler. Initiatives that combine public, private, and civil society capabilities—through data sharing, co-investment, or joint governance—are unlocking new capacities. Business models aligned with the SDGs are not side projects. They represent a shift in how value is created and measured in a resource-constrained, rapidly changing world. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #SDGs

24 May 2016. I made a move to the social sector after 27 years of corporate life. After managing a 1,500 crore business with thousands of employees, shifting focus to a non- profit rural initiative at a seemingly small scale raised many questions – internally and from my peers. But I am grateful to our co-founders Ronnie and Zarina who supported me as I navigated a new landscape – literally and figuratively. I visited Swades villages in Raigad and experienced first-hand, the transformation of our rural communities and the promise they hold when empowered with the right tools. Reflecting on these fabulous 8 years, here are some of my biggest learnings: 1. Earn community’s trust: Community, is the strongest catalyst to create sustainable social change. It is imperative that we earn their trust - through conversations, community-building exercises and above all, patience. The Village Development Committee that plays the eyes and ears of Swades on ground is an excellent example of how a supportive and aspirational community drives change. 2. Build team confidence: Understand the motivations, strengths and challenges of your key stakeholders and teams. Invest in building 3 Ps – process, people and performance. Engaging meaningfully with the team by way of town halls, competitions, recognitions goes a long way in creating a transparent and inclusive environment where one can leverage every insight (especially of those on ground) that’ll help collectively chase a common goal. 3. Share learnings to create replicable models: Social sector unlike corporate sector thrives on collaboration, not competition. There is excellent work happening the world over in the social sector and with regard to government initiatives. So expand your peer networks, indulge in knowledge sharing with corporate CSRs, other NGOs, governments, academicians. Swades model is a combination of some of the brightest ideas adopted from other institutions – for one, BRAC (Bangladesh) that is one of the few to adopt a holistic model of change.   4. Adopt a climate lens: At the outset include ways to make the model green – with renewable energy, local resources, mindful use of resources. The Swades toilet with compost pits, community-led water conservation efforts, solar-powered water / lighting programs are fine examples of how social change can be environmentally conscious. 5. All Hands (Head and Heart) on deck: Measuring social impact is not the same as measuring profits. Considering the human aspect of the effort is crucial to creating a compassionate model where the team, community and all other stake holders can work seamlessly and contribute most effectively. Hope you will find these useful. Ronnie Screwvala Swades Foundation

I saw this post, and it struck me deeply. https://lnkd.in/eEFgcec6 Ana Victoria Espino de Santiago is the first person in the world with Down Syndrome to practice law. She refused to let a diagnosis define her destiny. And why should it? Her difference is not the barrier to her success, what holds people back is the systems that are designed for only a certain kind of person to succeed. Companies and industries don’t have a people problem – there are huge, global populations of committed, capable and ambitious workers. Companies and industries have a systems problem. Where structures, policies and norms exclude people from accessing opportunities and achieving success within what can be narrow paths to success. If your business is serious about becoming truly inclusive, it needs to underpin every people strategy and policy with equity. Here are some ways to get started. 1️⃣Do you know where the barriers are? Do you know what your employees with disabilities and those who are neurodivergent really feel about their workplace? Are there processes and policies in place that senior leadership don’t even realise could be affecting the success of their teams? Your organisation needs this information as building blocks to embed real, systemic change. INvolve’s RADAR benchmarking tool can support you to identify areas of improvement. https://lnkd.in/e9WvV55x 2️⃣ Accessibility should be the starting point It’s easy to see accessibility as an add-on, but by design, it should be a crucial component for developing inclusive structures. From websites to office set-ups and through to hiring, retention and promotion processes – accessibility cannot be an after thought it has to be foundational 3️⃣ Meaningful representation Ana Victoria’s achievements provide people with Down’s Syndrome and their support networks with the confidence that success is possible. Does your senior leadership represent your employee population? Role Models are crucial – if individuals can’t see themselves reflected in positions of power, they assume it’s not possible. Ana Victoria may be the first person in the world with Down Syndrome to practice law, but let’s make sure she’s not the only one or that representation is few and far between. She’s a shining example that difference isn’t limiting, but that it’s the structure of a business or industry that can hold people back. #RoleModels #DownSyndrome #DisabilityInclusion

Sharing something positive in these uncertain times 🌍✨ Instead of doom scrolling, maybe share this with someone in your network who can benefit from it, help us build it, or simply be happy to know that something like this is being created. India needs more of this. 🤝 Dear all, With immense pleasure and a deep sense of purpose, I want to share that I am currently building an inclusive startup accelerator focused on promoting entrepreneurship for the differently abled. ♿🚀 And yes — this accelerator will also be providing funding to startups in the differently abled space. 💰 A little context on why this matters. Globally, nearly 16% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability. Disability is one of the largest minority groups in the world. In India, however, official data reports around 26.8 million persons with disabilities — roughly 2% of the population. This sharp gap strongly suggests that disability in India is significantly underreported and underrepresented due to social stigma, narrow definitions, rural exclusion, and lack of access to certification. Which means this is not a niche issue. It is a massive economic and inclusion opportunity. 📈 Now look at entrepreneurship: • Less than 1% of Indian startups are founded by persons with disabilities • Less than 5% of PwDs are self-employed or entrepreneurs • Over 70% of working-age PwDs are excluded from formal employment • Less than 2% of global VC capital flows into disability-led or accessibility-focused ventures Even though several initiatives exist, nearly 60–70% of PwD-focused entrepreneurship programs fail to convert into sustainable businesses. Not because of lack of capability — but because of lack of structured incubation, funding access, mentorship, and long-term support. This is an execution gap. Not a talent gap. The vision is to build India’s first super-speciality, profit-oriented accelerator focused on PwD founders, enabling 1,000+ PwD-led startups over the next 10 years and positioning persons with disabilities as job creators, innovators, and intrapreneurs. 🌱🏗️ We are currently looking to connect with: • Differently abled founders ♿ • Founders building in the accessibility or disability space 💡 • Investors interested in this ecosystem 💼 • Mentors, operators and anyone who wants to be a part of this initiative 🎯 If this resonates with you, or someone in your network, please feel free to schedule a short interaction here: https://lnkd.in/dKsdMwbQ And if nothing else, sharing this post might help it reach someone who really needs this opportunity. 🔁 Let’s build a more inclusive startup ecosystem. 🚀 #InclusiveEntrepreneurship #DisabilityInclusion #StartupAccelerator #PwD #Accessibility #ImpactInvesting #StartupIndia #SocialImpact #Entrepreneurship #DisabilityLeadership #VentureCapital #IndiaStartups

6 months ago, Gemma, Emily, and me were on a video call, brainstorming ideas. Last night, we celebrated the incredible efforts of 40+ people who built an Inclusion Toolkit for all businesses. The bits in between have been an amazing journey, and it feels like just the beginning 🚀 The Bristol Inclusion Hackathon was launched at the Ghyston and ISL Talent International Women’s Day event. Our goal? To create something lasting and impactful for everyone. Over the past few weeks, a diverse range of people from across Bristol came together to create this toolkit. Inclusive businesses win on so many fronts, but knowing how to achieve this can be challenging. That’s where the Inclusion Toolkit comes in 🙂 Whether you’re a leader, founder, employee, or consultant, this toolkit will help you understand and implement inclusion. We’ve produced sections on: ✨ Baking Inclusivity into Startups ✨ How to Engage Your Team & Leaders in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ✨ The Starter Guide to EDI: 10 Ways to Get Started ✨ The Inclusive Hiring Model ✨ Women's Health in the Workplace And launched today, you can access these for free. Download the resources via the link below, read them, share them, discuss them, and most importantly, put them into action ⏩ This toolkit has the potential to transform businesses across Bristol because a wonderful group of people care deeply about inclusion. So should you! A huge thanks to Gemma for her hard work and to Ashfords LLP for their hospitality last night. But our collective mission to drive inclusion doesn’t stop here. Many of those who contributed want to do more, and we’d love to hear from others, even if you haven’t been involved yet. This feels like the start of something special. If you have ideas on what could happen next, don’t be shy – get in touch 🙏

Denied education. Rejected by coaching giants. Built a ₹500 Cr company anyway. Take the journey of Srikanth Bolla. Born visually impaired in a rural farming family in Andhra Pradesh, his early life wasn’t just about personal hardship, it exposed structural limitations in India’s education ecosystem. After Class 10, he was explicitly denied access to the science stream by the state board. The reasoning? Visual impairment was seen as a barrier to scientific learning. Instead of rerouting his ambitions, he challenged the policy itself. A legal battle later, he secured the right to pursue science, and went on to score 98% in Class 12. Now here’s where it gets more interesting. India’s top engineering coaching ecosystems, optimized for high-volume, standardized training, failed to accommodate him. Rather than forcing a fit into a system not designed for accessibility, he pivoted globally. He earned admission to MIT, becoming its first international visually impaired student. That’s not just a personal milestone, it highlights the stark contrast in accessibility infrastructure and mindset across education systems. But the most strategic decision came after graduation. He declined lucrative opportunities abroad and returned to India to build something far more complex than a career: an inclusive industrial ecosystem. In 2012, he founded Bollant Industries. Let’s break that down from a business lens: 🔹 Core model: Circular economy + sustainable materials 🔹 Input: Agricultural waste (crop residue, leaf litter) 🔹 Output: Eco-friendly packaging alternatives (replacing single-use plastics) 🔹 Workforce design: High inclusion of differently-abled and unskilled labor 🔹 Impact layer: Environmental + social + economic This isn’t just a “feel-good” venture, it’s a multi-layered systems solution: 1. Reduces agri-waste burning 2. Creates rural employment 3. Addresses plastic pollution 4. Builds an inclusive workforce model Today, the company has scaled to ~₹500 Cr valuation with significant annual revenues, proving that inclusive design is not charity, it’s commercially viable. He later went on to feature in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia and has stepped into the investor ecosystem, supporting early-stage founders on Shark Tank India. The deeper takeaway? We often misdiagnose “limitations” as individual deficiencies, when they’re actually failures in system design. Accessibility is not a constraint on performance. It’s a multiplier, if engineered correctly. Srikanth didn’t just succeed despite the system. He identified its blind spots (literally and figuratively) and built around them. And that’s what real innovation looks like. #Leadership #Inclusion #Entrepreneurship #Sustainability #Innovation

Almost every Product leader I speak to shares about being interested in having an impact. It's fascinating to note that impactful changes don't always necessitate grand visions. They can be achieved through incremental steps, one customer at a time, by fostering inclusivity in our product development processes. Annie Jean-Baptiste shares "Product Inclusion is the practice of applying an inclusive lens throughout the entire product design and development process to create better products and accelerate business growth." In my journey, I've found that significant enhancements often result from incremental adjustments: 💡 Inclusive Research: Ensure our research is inclusive and we are learning from diverse customers. Even incorporating one additional dimension of diversity into our research approach can render our products a tad more inclusive. 💡 Harms Modelling: Prior to commencing product development, conducting a pre-mortem exercise focused on mitigating potential harm to our customers can significantly enhance inclusivity in our products. 💡 Diverse teams: Cultivating diverse teams fosters a rich diverse set of perspectives, thereby enriching our product development process and ensuring inclusivity is woven into the fabric of our product development. 💡 Testing with diverse customers: Leveraging diverse customer cohorts for testing enables us to identify and rectify potential biases or exclusions, resulting in products that cater to a broader audience. 💡 Building with diverse customers: Involving diverse customers in the co-creation process empowers us to tailor our products to their unique needs and preferences, fostering a sense of ownership and inclusivity. 💡 Accessibility Integration: Incorporating features such as screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and adjustable font sizes can significantly improve accessibility and inclusivity. I found that testing accessibility before launching is a great way to minimize negative impact. #productinclusion #productmanagement #productleadership

Everytable has a variable pricing model where we charge $5-7 per meal in low-income communities and $7-10 per meal in mid-high income communities. The model was designed to be profitable in every community, but also create an inclusive system that works for everyone. When we started, many people assumed that stores in higher income neighborhoods would “subsidize” stores in lower-income neighborhoods. It seemed there was an oft unspoken belief that there wasn’t strong demand for healthy food in underserved neighborhoods. We disagreed. Don’t confuse lack of access with preference. We said we expected sales to be higher in underserved neighborhoods, because there are lots of people with very few (if any) healthy, fast food options and, contrary to what some may say, most people want healthy, fresh food. Here are the top 10 highest revenue stores in our Southern California portfolio last week (* = lower price point). 1. Monterey Park 2. Bellflower* 3. South LA* 4. Compton* 5. Hollywood* 6. Vista (San Diego) 7. Los Feliz 8. Culver City 9. Compton College* 10. Watts* What’s so exciting is that not only are we clearly resonating in underserved communities, but also that’s we're resonating in middle, mixed and high income areas as well! Truly inclusive--a food system that works for ALL. Yesterday I learned that we’d signed a SmartFridge deal with Harvard-Westlake, the most elite private school in Los Angeles. Love that students at both Harvard-Westlake and Compton College are eating the same nutritious, delicious food!

The true purpose of CSR is often misunderstood. It’s not about charity or handouts, it’s about creating opportunities that enable people to stand on their own feet. During the early days of setting up operations in Gadchiroli, I spent time meeting with villagers from the surrounding areas. Listening to their stories and aspirations only reinforced what I believed, if we want to enable real progress, we must focus on equipping people with the right skills, not just offering short-term support. The old saying came back to me, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” From that point on, our approach to CSR evolved. We shifted away from checklist initiatives and began working “with” the community, not just “for” them. We invested in skill development, training programs, education, and infrastructure, initiatives designed to empower people to build their own futures. Because when the community grows stronger, so do we. And that’s what responsible business is really about. #CommunityDriven #SkillsOverCharity #PeopleFirst #CSRWithPurpose #EmpowermentThroughAction

Integrating disruptive strategies into CSR In an era where CSR is evolving from traditional philanthropy to strategic disruption, Vedanta stands out as a pioneer. By embedding CSR into its core operations, Vedanta is not just addressing social challenges but is also redefining the role of business in society. Here we explore how Vedanta leverages disruptive CSR strategies to drive sustainable dev. & community empowerment. 1. Revolutionizing Early Childhood Dev.: The Nand Ghar Initiative Vedanta's flagship CSR project, Nand Ghar, exemplifies disruptive innovation in early childhood care & education. In partnership with the Ministry of WCD, Vedanta is transforming traditional Anganwadi centers into modern facilities equipped with solar power, digital learning tools & healthcare services. These centers aim to empower 7 cr. children & 2 cr. women pan-India, providing integrated services that include nutrition, education & skill development. 2. Empowering Rural Youth: Skill Development Centers Recognizing the need for skilled manpower in India's growing economy, Vedanta has established various skill dev. centers offering free vocational training. These centers focus on trades such as tailoring, welding & computer literacy, aiming to build the capabilities of rural youth. Since 2016 over 173K youths have been trained with a significant number linked to employment opportunities, thereby contributing to economic growth & stability. 3. Enhancing Education & Sanitation: Projects Vidya & Nirmal In Jharsuguda Vedanta has launched Project Vidya & Project Nirmal to address educational & sanitation challenges. Project Vidya improves student-teacher ratios by deploying additional teachers in government schools, enhancing learning outcomes in key subjects. Project Nirmal focuses on sustainable water & sanitation solutions installing solar-powered borewells, bio-toilets & water purifiers benefiting over 30K community members. 4. Sustainable Agriculture: Project Jeevika Samriddhi Vedanta's Jeevika Samriddhi project in Jharsuguda aims to secure the economic prosperity of farming communities through improved land & water mgt. & sustainable agricultural practices. By introducing efficient farming methods & augmenting irrigation infrastructure, the project has increased income levels of farming households by 50% demonstrating the impact of strategic CSR on rural livelihoods. Conclusion Vedanta’s approach to CSR transcends traditional boundaries, positioning the company as a catalyst for social innovation & sustainable dev. By integrating disruptive strategies into its CSR initiatives, Vedanta not only addresses pressing societal challenges but also sets a precedent for how businesses can drive meaningful change. This model serves as a blueprint for corporations aiming to align profitability with purpose demonstrating that strategic CSR can be a powerful tool for societal transformation. #DeshKiZarooratonKeLiye #DisruptiveCSR #SocialInnovation #RunForZeroHunger