Corporation, Community & Sustainability- an Integral approach

Dr. Subhasis RayCentre for Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Corporate Social ResponsibilityXavier Institute of Management (XIMB)Bhubaneswar, Orissa

Not all sustainability projects make economic sense for companies.

Marc Orlitzky, 2013

Not all CSR projects have a positive outcome Husted, 2011

Current research on sustainability• Research has not shown a conclusive business

case for sustainability.

Sustainability and CSR can have firm-level pay-offs, but it’s extremely difficult to predict which specific sustainability projects increase, let alone maximize, economic or social returns.

Suggested response Companies should only invest in sustainability

projects for which rigorous cost-benefit or net present value analyses have incontestably shown the economic superiority of sustainability investments.

• Network for Business Sustainability (NBS)

sustainability initiatives implemented with only a vague goal of enhancing an organization’s legitimacy or image and without comprehensive accounting of economic costs and trade-offs.

Suggested response• One way to do this is to rely on more objective,

or trustworthy metrics, perhaps generated by independent rating agencies.

• Sustainability has to be trans- disciplinary and glocal- challenges

Recent Indian researchKey issues in linking sustainability and CSR ( Ray, 2013)a. Capacity Building ( middle and top level

executives)b. Institutional mechanismsc. Stakeholder engagementd. Knowledge management ( CSR in health-

community consciousness about health)

Field level issues• Problems of reporting- gaming CSR • Bidding for sustainable development( problems

of market research)• Outsourcing CSR• Civil Engineering is the new CSR• Local vs national vs international NGO• Love for projects that are large• Problems of aggregating small projects

( sometimes > 400)

• In the last 2000 years, India and China were top economic powers for 1700 years- where is the knowledge of these economic systems, business-society relationships and their relation to tradition ?

• From Bordeau, Foucault to Chanakya & Sri Aurobindo- an agenda for sustainability

• Oriental traditions have abundant commonalities which are under researched in the context of management

• capital consciousness to conscious capitalism- what is consciousness ?

• Focus on supra-mental consciousness beyond mind, reason and logic- (rational, cognitive and scientific)

• Knowledge that is emotional, embodied and intuitive

• Need for integral vision - “integral management” – for sustainable communities and corporations

What is required

• Authentic, long term research design through experimentation ( GOLDEN)

• Audit and validation bodies that are competent, independent and neutral (beyond awards )

• Articulating possible Indian model/s of planning for sustainability and sustainable development

Research

“Future crisis cannot be stopped unless human nature is changed”

“It is left to men to decide if they will collaborate for change in consciousness or it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crashing circumstances”

Communities and corporations are two banks of the same river that ultimately converge/culminates in the ocean of human flourishing

Thank you all for building a bridge