CSR Audit The Need Of The Hour

In the past few years, the language of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been quite dynamic for some good reasons and people are gaining more awareness about it as well as willing to implement the idea in every aspect of life.

Several new ideas of conducting CSR activities have arisen and there is now a high demand in the global village for a strategic implementation of CSR of the corporate entities in the society.

Many successful companies today have become well-known for incorporating social causes as well as social initiatives into their work cultures and their business strategies. CSR, in simple terms, is a company being conscious of the kind of impact it has on all the aspects of the society i.e. environmental, social and economic.

But how do we know if these companies 'walk-the-talk'? Enter, CSR audit. A CSR audit helps to understand and measure a company’s actual social performance against the social objectives it has set for itself. So, it is “What we are doing” vs “What we had promised to do”.

Every company has a CSR committee which is a governing body that articulates the scope of CSR activities for the company and ensures compliance with the CSR policy. The CSR policy is monitored from time to time and changes when the CSR committee deems fit. The CSR committee plays by the rules set in Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. Usually companies that abide by the Companies Act are involved in social activities such as promotion of education, eradicating hunger, poverty, malnutrition, promotion of gender equality, parting vocational skills, empowering women, etc. There are several ways to spend the CSR budget for the society. Apart from the CSR, which in any case is mandatory, some companies have started indulging in Corporate Shared Value (CSV), the new trend in the corporate world.