CRISIL recognised for financial capability building and environmental conservation. It helped nearly a million rural women to get accessed to banking and welfare schemes.
CRISIL, through its CSR arm, CRISIL Foundation, has focused on doing impactful work by building the financial capabilities of rural women, and vulnerable communities, and by conserving the environment. This has delivered high social returns for stakeholders via empowered and strengthened communities, the company said.
CRISIL Ltd has bagged Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award 2020 in the category ‘Corporate Awards for Excellence in CSR’ for financial capability building and environmental conservation.
“We have focused on doing impactful work by building the financial capabilities of rural women, and vulnerable communities, and by conserving the environment. This has delivered high social returns for stakeholders via empowered and strengthened communities. The award is a testament to conscientious on-ground efforts, and a recognition of the highly committed and energetic team behind it.”, Amish Mehta, MD & CEO, CRISIL Ltd said.
“Our CSR programmes follow rigorous frameworks to deliver impact. We continuously leverage data and insights from the ground, which enable the improvisation of interventions to drive deeper impact. That has aided our Sakhi cadre to improve financial inclusion outcomes in communities. It has also ensured a high survival rate of plants in our afforestation efforts.”, Maya Vengurlekar, Chief Operating Officer, CRISIL Foundation said.
Financial capability programme in Assam and Rajasthan
In Assam and Rajasthan, CRISIL Foundation has established Mein Pragati, a financial capability programme.
This is facilitated through a well-trained, all-women community cadre of Sakhis. This cadre has helped address the last-mile constraints in awareness and access to financial services. As of date, these Sakhis have supported over a million rural community members, mostly women, by facilitating access to banking, government, and welfare schemes. Mein Pragati (in Assam) had been awarded the National CSR Awards in 2019, under the category ‘CSR in Challenging Circumstances, North-East’.
CRISIL Foundation’s efforts through Mein Pragati has led to a larger partnership – the MoneyWise Centre for Financial Literacy (CFL) project; thereby scaling up financial awareness and inclusion efforts across 60,000 villages spread across 18 states and union territories with support from the Reserve Bank of India, 10 public sector banks and NABARD, the foundation said.
“By building these into timely, relevant, and trusted centres of knowledge, we have taken a firm step towards enabling ‘last-mile financial inclusion, which is critical to the country’s long-term development.”, it said.
The company’s vision is to effect change via social impact on the economy and the environment – with a focus on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future and by embracing sustainable growth.
CRISIL RE – environment conservation programme
Bearing this ethos, CRISIL RE, the flagship environment conservation programme, works on urban afforestation in line with two United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) namely, ‘Climate Action’ and ‘Life on Land. The programme engages CRISIL employees and their families, friends, and relatives in conservation and other socially responsible activities. So far, this has led to the planting of more than 100,000 native trees across cities in India, the foundation claimed.
The Foundation has chosen to and is currently working with the most vulnerable target group – rural women – in some of the most difficult geographies to work in. Mein Pragati, our largest intervention is currently in over 25 districts of Assam and Rajasthan – reaching out to over a million beneficiaries since 2015.
“We have an established presence in the districts, which also include few which fall under Niti Aayog’s list of 115 Aspirational Districts.”, the foundation said.
The Foundation is rigorous and disciplined when it comes to assessing the impact of its programmes – be it through a third-party assessment or by a separate M&E function – which has enhanced the quality and outcomes of the initiatives, it added.
ESG Agenda
CRISIL recognises the growing importance and relevance of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda. The way CRISIL’s CSR projects are designed, enable the company to effectively cover the ‘Social’ & ‘Environment’ agenda. Thus, making it very strong on all three components of the ‘ESG’ agenda.
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