The Draft National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities issued by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) are a refinement over the Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Guidelines 2009, released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in December 2009. The Guidelines are designed to be used by all businesses irrespective of size, sector or location laying down the basic requirements for businesses to function responsibly, thereby ensuring a wholesome and inclusive process of economic growth.
The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines integrates sustainability issues into a framework of reporting. The GRI Reporting framework intends to serve as a generally accepted framework for reporting on an organization™s economic, environmental and social performance. Organisations of any size, sector or location can use it.
The Guidelines emphasize that businesses have to endeavor to become responsible actors insociety, so that their every action leads to sustainable growth and economic development.Accordingly, the Guidelines use the terms ˜Responsible Business™ instead of Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR) as the term ˜Responsible Business™ encompasses the limited scope andunderstanding of the term CSR.The Guidelines take into account the learnings from various international and national goodpractices, norms and frameworks, and provide a distinctively ˜Indian™ approach, which willenable businesses to balance and work through the many unique requirements of our land. Byvirtue of these Guidelines being derived out of the unique challenges of the Indian economy andthe Indian nation, they take cognizance of the fact that all agencies need to collaborate together,to ensure that businesses flourish, even as they contribute to the wholesome and inclusivedevelopment of the country. The Guidelines emphasize that responsible businesses alone will beable to help India meet its ambitious goal of inclusive and sustainable all round development,while becoming a powerful global economy by 2020.
ICSI has organised a discussion session, where the the views and comments of the stakeholders on the Draft National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business and creating an awareness about the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines will be talked over. The half-day multi stakeholder consultation will be attended by various companies’ CEOs, Directors, Company Secretaries and Top Management people.
A Half-Day multi Stakeholder consultation is being organized by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ)under a bilateral cooperation, the IICA-GIZ CSR Initiative, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Focal Point India and The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) on May 10, 2011 at Bengal Club, Kolkata to discuss the Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) & Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
The objective of this stakeholder consultation is to seek the views and comments of the stakeholders on the Draft National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business and to create awareness about the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
The programme would be attended by CEOs, Directors, Company Secretaries and Top Management.
