Dialogue and Partnership Forum for Responsible and Sustainable Business ‘Amplifier’ magnifies discussions in Odisha

BHUBANEWSWAR: Taru Leading Edge in partnership with Shaktishi and How India Lives has launched AMPLIFIER: Dialogue and Partnership Forum for Responsible and Sustainable Business through its launch event CSR and Responsible Business in Odisha on December 19, 2016 at the Crown Hotel in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.

This event, the first in the knowledge and dialogue series, served as an informal and interactive platform to showcase insights and experiences of various stakeholders.

The speakers included sectoral and domain experts from Tata Steel, JSPL, Infosys, Reliance Foundation, BSE Sammann CSR Ltd., FICCI and Renaissance; the event saw participation from organisations such as UNDP, J-PAL, Essar Foundation, ACC Cement Ltd, Tata Power, YCDA, Aaina, Practical Action, BASIX Consulting and Technology Pvt Ltd, CYSD, Pratham Foundation, Thriveni Earth Movers, Local Governance Network amongst others.

Shipra Saxena, Team Leader – India Sanitation Coalition (ISC) – FICCI commented “Partnerships and collaborations are essential in pushing initiatives forward; this platform serves a good example for getting various entities talking and thinking of the way forward.”

Hemant Gupta, MD & CEO – BSE Sammaan CSR Ltd touched on addressing the information gap faced by corporates and key players by adding “BSE Sammaan platform would like to increase collaboration and extend partnerships by providing information to Corporates about CSR activities – sector wise, undertaken by NGOs Pan India and also, an actionable roadmap to the companies and track their CSR performance.”

Abha Mishra, State Head – Odisha, UNDP added,“The event was very timely as the need of the hour is to bring the private and development sector together to ensure resilient and sustainable development that is also inclusive.”

S. Rama Krishna, CSR In-charge, ACC Limited, Bargarh said, “It’s wonderful to be part of the event and to see such quality initiatives in CSR. There is much scope and a need to learn from each other, looking forward to more such initiatives.”

The participants and the panellists discussed their learnings and shared insights from the CSR, and sustainable and responsible business sector in Odisha; including the challenges and opportunities in the sector and ways to leverage partnerships in promoting sustainable and scalable solutions. They also discussed CSR ecosystem in India and its evolution along with partnership models, case studies and failures.

The event saw deliberations on how more partnerships can be built and a lively interactive platform can be set up to get everybody on a same page. It was a path breaking initiative to galvanise the CSR, sustainable and responsible business discussions and partnerships by getting different stakeholders to ideate on different avenues and the way forward for strengthening the responsible and sustainable business landscape of Odisha.

The event was organised by Taru Leading Edge with support of knowledge partners Shaktishi and How India Lives (HIL). Manu Prakash, Director and Practice Head at Taru Leading Edge commented “Amplifier is a national forum and we plan to organise more such events in different cities and states across India to fast track and foster conversations amongst various stakeholders in this arena”.

Mayuri Misra, Chief Executive Officer at Shaktishi added, “There is a need to nurture a resilient ecosystem for impactful CSR and a discussion forum like the Amplifier will play a pivotal role to discuss the new CSR law and its implications to be able to plan a coherent and inclusive strategy which will contribute to Business Sustainability responsibly.”

John Samuel Raja, Co-Founder at How India Lives said, “This (Amplifier) event series will really help to understand and map the CSR landscape of India and take a deeper look into different types of innovative ideas being implemented by corporates across India and also, getting these corporates to talk to each other and see where pooling of resources can be done to deliver higher social impact.”

This innovative forum strives to facilitate discussions and raise awareness by creating an environment which is more conversational amongst various stakeholders from different agencies and organisations and capture multiple viewpoints to bring a transformative impact on the geographies and communities. Similar events under the Amplifier series are planned across India every couple of months.