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Achilles’ heel of most companies in India, which have
little visibility on human rights issues beyond their tier-1
suppliers.

Another critical component focuses on communities
around production sites. Many people, most likely
involuntarily, gave up the land on which a factory or
other facility has been built. Apart from any (and very
likely inadequate) compensation they may have received
at that time, they now get very little benefit from the
development. India’s government may mandate that 2% of
company profits must go to CSR projects, but even if that
money filters through, it is unlikely to compensate for the
huge costs of pollution, water use, and other disruptions.
converge into one overarching theme i.e., climate change Worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has driven huge numbers
mitigation – that is, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) of people back to their villages. With extremely limited
emissions through renewable energy (RE), electric vehicles employment opportunities, communities are increasingly
(EVs), and wider net-zero strategies.
expecting more from companies that have plants in their
Reading–or listening–between the lines of exchanges midst. Since communities now provide the ‘license to
will lead to only a fleeting discussion on the ‘S’ part of the operate’, at least some companies are waking up to the
formula. This usually grinds to a halt around diversity. And need to respond proactively and positively to community
if we think about India, the conversation rarely goes beyond needs and aspirations to ensure business continuity.
gender. That, sadly, seems to be the ‘be-all-and-end-all’ of Another ‘S’ component is safety. While most established
ESG!
companies invest in safety training, processes and
Anyone who has watched the ESG agenda evolve from equipment, much of this is restricted to their own
early discussions on the triple bottom line will be able to workforce. What is less clear is the extent to which these
understand that there is far more to it than that, especially investments cover contract and casual labour working
in emerging economies like India. As companies outsource in their plants. And too often, firms also fail to track
their activities, their dependence on supply chains increases related investments made by suppliers, despite the
and this is where they become extremely vulnerable to the ‘S’ fact that accidents and casualties in supply chains can
agenda. disrupt their own operations. Thus, it is in the interests
of companies that they continuously expand the scope of
This was true before the COVID-19, but the pandemic safe operations.
harshly spotlighted the plight of informal workers—many
of them migrants—who make up the base of the economic Hence, the ‘S’ story and the parallel convergent stories
and (not coincidentally) social pyramid, mired via exclusion for the economic, environmental, and governance
on accounts of gender, caste, identity, disability, and so on. dimensions too are present. Given space constraints,
Such people make a massive contribution to India’s wealth, those have to be stories for another time!
generally by working in MSMEs (micro, small and medium-
sized enterprises), which are themselves an integral part of
the supply chains of large companies, in construction (at
building sites, most obviously, but also in the production of
red bricks, stones, sand, aggregates), in the gig economy, and
as contract and casual labour.
Their term of employment precisely characterizes the lack of
terms of employment. Human rights violations are the norm,
be it in wages, working and living conditions, and safety—
with scant, if any, investment made in training. This is the