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5 major tech companies impact 15.4 million lives through CSR
5 major tech companies impact 15.4 million lives through CSR

July 26, 2024

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Since India became the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending mandatory under Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, CSR activity has been on the rise. As per the latest Economic Survey tabled by the government in July 2024, the overall CSR spending by Indian companies stood at Rs 1.5 trillion between 2014 and 2022. Interestingly, more than half of this amount has been spent after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic between the three years spanning 2020 to 2022, depicting the public and private sector’s growing willingness to create a higher social impact.

Technology companies scaling up CSR spending

Among private sector organizations, technology companies have been playing an active role in CSR activities. For instance, Infosys has been a front-runner in undertaking CSR activities and had established its CSR arm in as early as 1996, much before the government mandated 2% contribution to CSR activity came into existence. Further, companies like Wipro, TCS, Infosys, have undertaken CSR spending that exceeds their government mandated spending both during FY 2023 as well as FY 2024.

CSR spending for five select technology companies

CSR Data

                                               Source: Annual reports for these companies

During FY 2024, five select technology companies in India (Wipro, TCS, Infosys, LTI Mindtree and Tech Mahindra) that accounted for 27-28% of the sector revenue contributed $231 million to CSR activities. This represented a growth of 7.9% as compared to FY 2023 when CSR spending stood at $214.2 million.

While the CSR spending of TCS, Infosys and LTI Mindtree witnessed an increase on a year-on-year basis, Wipro and Tech Mahindra witnessed a downward trend (owing to their declining profitability). Infosys increased its CSR spending by 11.6% between FY 2023 and FY 2024, followed by TCS, which witnessed an increase of 10%.

CSR focus areas

These technology companies have been targeting critical social, environmental and economic issues through their CSR activities to encourage the formation of an equitable and sustainable society. Education (including skilling) emerged as the key priority area among the five companies, followed by domains such as healthcare, ecology, environmental sustainability and employee engagement or volunteering.

Impacting lives with a focus on vulnerable and marginalized communities

The numerous CSR projects being undertaken by these 5 technology companies have impacted 15.4 million lives during FY 2024. Among the target segments, education has the highest number of beneficiaries at 4.6 million. This is followed by ecology and environment with 4.2 million beneficiaries.

Most of the CSR projects undertaken by the technology sector are strongly focused on benefiting the vulnerable and marginalized sections of the population. Here, vulnerable and marginalized groups refer to indigenous groups, women, religious minorities, people with disabilities, lower castes, urban poor etc. Out of the 15.4 million lives impacted, beneficiaries from the vulnerable and marginalized groups accounted for 33.7%, or 5.2 million.

An interesting insight is that LTI Mindtree stands out from the other four companies, with 20 out of its 21 CSR projects having 100% beneficiaries from vulnerable and marginalized groups. We also found that most of Tech Mahindra’s skill development and education program students come from marginalized groups. Notably 50.4% of the Tech Mahindra Foundation’s beneficiaries are women and 18.2% of the core program beneficiaries are persons with disabilities.

Details of beneficiaries of CSR projects (2023-24)

Company

Education

Employment

Healthcare

Ecology and Environment

Others

Wipro

2,02,000

 

1,500,000

 

16,000

TCS

773,688

23,297

 

 

 

Infosys

3,121,933

60,185

890,961

4,106,249

2,338,022

LTI Mindtree

342,542

 

34,903

153,333

67,920

Tech Mahindra

109,504

 

 

 

14,59,302

                                       Source: Annual reports for these companies

 

Future outlook for CSR spending by technology companies

In the coming years, the Economic Survey predicts that the expectations of robust growth of the Indian economy and rising corporate profits will propel the growth of the mandatory CSR funding pool. As some of the leading technology companies are already undertaking CSR funding activities beyond their mandated amounts, their intention to create a greater social impact is clear. Some of these companies have already announced targets for the number of lives they intend to impact during FY 2024-25. For instance, Wipro has outlined a goal to impact 4.9 million lives during FY 2024-25. Further, LTI Mindtree has stated its plans to impact ~0.7 million lives during the same period. These companies are emerging as great role models for other technology organizations to follow and focus on CSR initiatives that create scalable impact at grassroot level.

 


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Kuhu Singh
Manager, Research

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