Corporate social responsibility and sustainable development goals: a study of selected companies in India

Billions of people in the world lack access to the basic necessities of life. In 2000, the United Nations adopted a series of eight goals termed as the ‘millennium development goals’ (MDGs) for member states, to be achieved by 2015. By 2015, these goals were only partially achieved. In September 2015, the United Nations adopted a new series of 17 ‘sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) with 169 associated targets, to be fulfilled by 2030. While the responsibility of achieving the SDGs lies with the governments of the UN member states, corporations can also contribute to SDG achievement via their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Corporate social responsibility had been practiced by Indian companies even before 2013 but it was not structured so corporations failed to take it seriously. However, after the amendment of Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, the efforts in this direction have become systematic. What was interesting to note was that some of the interventions outlined in Schedule VII of this Act fell under the purview of the SDGs as well! An important research question was whether the CSR activities of the large, well-funded corporations in developing countries was aligned with SDGs. So, in this study the CSR activities listed in Schedule VII of the 50 largest companies in India according to market capitalization were examined and analysed for the period 2015-16 to 2020-2021 and a Corporate Social Responsibility SDG Disclosure Index (CSRSDGDI) was constructed. A content analysis method was used to classify CSR activities into categories related to SDGs and inferences were drawn about the extent to which companies were directing CSR towards SDGs.