Corporate Social Responsibility Project Report

on

Critical analysis of Sustainability report of

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Submitted by:

Group 10
Avinash Kumar
Saurabh Mishra
Abhiroop Mukherjee
Amartya Sen
Vuda Anurag Naveen Theja

G034
G040
G042
G055
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Corporate Social Responsibility

Index

1. The Mahindra Group

2. CSR policy of Mahindra Group
3. Sustainability challenges / materiality issues
4. Integration of Sustainability into business strategy
5. Sustainability structure of Mahindra
6. Measurement of social performance indicators
7. Measurement of environmental performance indicators
8. Achievement of past targets
9. Approach to stakeholder engagement
10. Other pertinent things
11. Three key learnings for the team

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The Mahindra Group

Mahindra is a USD 16.7 billion multinational group based in Mumbai, India, with
more than 180,000 people in over 100 countries. In addition to being leaders in
fields of utility vehicle manufacturing, information technology, tractors, financial
services, real estate and vacation homes, they also have a presence in
aerospace, aftermarket, components, consulting services, defence, energy,
logistics, retail and two wheelers.
The group has transformed its core purpose which is, To challenge
conventional thinking and innovatively use all our resources to drive positive
change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world - to
enable them to Rise. The new purpose aims in taking along all the communities
and stakeholders across the world to grow and rise move beyond the
conventional thinking by engaging all its resources. This goes in tandem to their
core values to rise and lead by sustainability. These values guide their actions,
personal and corporate both. Their core values are; Professionalism, Good
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corporate citizenship, Customer First, Quality focus, Dignity of the individual.

These values of the employees drive the group to set the targets for their CSR
activities and deliver on them.

CSR policy of Mahindra Group

Being such a large global organization, Mahindra sees an opportunity to bring
about positive change for all its stakeholders. By making all aspects of the
business sustainable, they strive for a better world. Mahindra being an integral
part of the society feel that they need to conduct their business responsibly. In all
they do, they ensure they Rise for good.
Sustainability encompasses not only the conservation of our environment, but
also a responsibility to every stakeholder - shareholders, employees, and
customers, the communities impacted and the suppliers. Besides making the
business sustainable they go from creating fuel-efficient automobiles in green
facilities to encouraging sustainable supply chain management to reducing office
footprints.
Beyond conducting business consciously and responsibly, they support
communities through environmental and social initiatives. They build schools
and support educational programs for students of all ages. Their environmental
initiatives include building greener facilities and planting trees across India. They
provide health and disaster relief for people in need. They also embrace culture
and sport through festivals and youth sports leagues.

SUSTAINIBILITY 2.0

Look into deeper into materiality issues

Align sustainability in line with newer expectations of external stakeholders

such as govt., regulator and investor

Champion sustainability through a structured process

Realign materiality with stakeholder expectations

Make the business future ready, enabling them to make a larger impact

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Move towards business wise reporting so that each business can focus
individually on material issues

Benchmark each business against the best in the industry

Fig 1. Sustainability 2.0

VARIOUS PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN AS PER POLICY

Fig 2. Various Educational Projects Undertaken

Education is a great tool for transforming lives. Knowledge and skills impact not
only earnings, but also self-esteem and the standard of living. By bringing quality
education to more people, a more tolerant, healthy, just, and connected society is
achieved.
Nanhi Kali: Sponsor the education of girl children.
Mahindra United World College: Students from all over the world study every
year.
Pride schools: These Schools link people with careers by providing job training
and computer skills.
Grants and scholarship: We make higher education possible for thousands of
students every year. At Mahindra Ecole Centrale they create engineers of the
future.

Fig 3. Various Environmental Projects Undertaken

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The businesses incorporate environmental responsibility, from zero water waste

automobile factory at Chakan to LEED - certified Mahindra Lifespaces
residences. Quality of life and environmental health go hand in hand

Mahindra is transforming old practices into new green initiatives. In 2008,

Mahindra developed sustainability roadmaps within each of their sectors.

Fig 4. Various Projects Undertaken in Health sector

Good health is the foundation of happy, prosperous, and meaningful lives. They
organize workshops on HIV/AIDS, dental care, and hygiene and run medical
camps providing free care. Their disaster relief response to the 2008 Bihar
floods touched 10,000 lives. Lifeline Express, Call 108, and 104 Advice services
are expanding medical care into more and more regions that are not well served
by the formal system.
They partner with the Emergency Management and Research Institute to provide
an ambulance service in many states across India. From blood donation drives to
health education and check-ups, Esops volunteers touch thousands of lives each
year.

Fig 5. Various Cultural Projects Undertaken

Mahindra helps support long heritage of performing and fine arts through film
festivals and awards, cultural festivals, and theatre awards.
The Mahindra Excellence in Theater Awards foster Indian theater by hosting an
annual theater festival and recognizing excellence on a national platform.
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Lucknow culture festival revives and celebrates the performing arts, crafts, and
cuisine of the Nawabs of Awadh. Mahindra Blues Festival celebrates a passion
for Blues - bringing the world's greatest Blues musicians to Mumbai for an
unforgettable event.

Sustainability challenges & materiality issues at Group

level
While the diversity of issues relevant to each business was sacrosanct, in order
to maintain a common pattern, the material issues identified by all the businesses
were analysed. It was noted that while the issues included in the roadmaps were
different, they revolved around the following five areas:
Eco efficiency: Targets were set around water conservation, energy efficacy,
biodiversity preservation, reduction in waste generation and GHG emissions etc.
Responsible product development: Includes issues like customer safety,
reduced environmental footprint during product's life cycle in the use phase and
product stewardship.
Community Development: Increased employee volunteering, undertaking largescale social development projects, and conducting need and impact
assessments.
Green supply chain management: Encompassed training, audits, effective
packaging and logistics etc.
Employee Care & Development: Continuous improvement in health & safety
standards, training & development, and knowledge enhancement in various
fields.

Integration of Sustainability into business strategy

Mahindra Group started its sustainability journey seven years ago and they now
have embarked on Sustainability 2.0 the next stage of their sustainability journey.
Now after embedding the overall framework of sustainability across businesses,
Sustainability 2.0 takes this ahead to targeted Business wise sustainability and
the first step towards individual accountability by formulating customized
business-specific roadmaps. The following are the ways through which Mahindra
tries to integrate Sustainability into its business strategy:

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A 3600 awareness campaign to mainstream Sustainability across the

organization, including multi-disciplinary tools such as training programs,
mailers, installations, posters, celebrations, intranet, film screenings, etc.
Alternative thinking is used as a strategic approach to drive sustainability
into business decisions.
Roadmaps are formulated with a timeframe of 1,3 and 5 years covering
aspects related to reduction in energy, GHG emissions, water and waste,
enhancing awareness among significant shareholders etc.
Continued focus on capacity building and knowledge enhancement around
the emerging dimensions of Sustainability through regular workshops and
specifically tailored programs.
Adopting sustainability as a key plank in their business portfolio and strategic
acquisitions and large-scale investments towards the same.
Acquisition of Reva Electric Vehicles Ltd.
Forayed in farm equipment and rural housing finance
Forayed in solar domain
Reinforced focus on alternative propulsion technology.
State-of-the-art green manufacturing plant with a phased investment of
over USD 1 billion.
The competitive advantages of sustainability is harvested and well
communicated
Asias first 100% bio-diesel SUV
Indias first hydrogen powered three wheeler
Indias first compact low maintenance, high mileage and affordable trucks.
Introducing the sustainability culture to key members of supply chain.
Instituted a green supply chain policy for all suppliers of group.
Awareness drives and training sessions for key suppliers on environment,
health and safety issues are conducted.
Going beyond mere incremental change and seeding large impact initiatives
like:
Rehabilitating the flood-devastated Pattori village to an eco-friendly model
village.
Being a catalyst to rural prosperity using their unique finance business model
and farm support solutions.
Developing business-wise roadmaps in addition to charting a Group-wise
roadmap.

Sustainability structure of Mahindra

Sustainability at Mahindra has always been top-down governance enabling
strategic vision and action plan to not just steer grass-roots interventions but also
monitoring its effectiveness and disclosing it transparently.

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Fig 6. Sustainability structure of Mahindra

Measurement of Social performance indicators

Education
K. C. Mahindra Education Trust
The K.C. Mahindra Education Trust has undertaken a number of education
initiatives to make a difference to the lives of deserving students.

K. C. Mahindra Scholarships for Post-Graduate Studies Abroad Interest-free

loan scholarships for post-graduate studies for students intending to pursue
their education abroad

Mahindra Search for Talent Scholarship: Covers 35 schools

K. C. Mahindra United World College Scholarship: Offered for students from

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Encouraging Teachers:
K. C. Mahindra Chair for Nuclear Chemistry at the IISc
Dhandevi Mahindra Scholarship Award at Sophia College, Mumbai

Empowering the Under-privileged

Mahindra All India Talent Scholarship
Nanhi Kali

Mahindra Education Society

Mahindra Group has established schools near its factories primarily for
adding value to the children of its employees.

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The Group has three schools imparting high standards of education

-Mahindra Academy at Malad in Mumbai, Mahindra Academy in Zaheerabad
and a school in Khopoli.

The establishment of these schools benefited the employees and also the
community around these schools.

Mahindra United World College

It is the Groups endeavour to promote world-class education with an

emphasis on the ideals of peace and understanding, central to the ethos of
the United World Colleges. They are present in U.K, Singapore, Canada,
Swaziland, Italy, United States of America, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Norway
and India.

Each years batch of about 100 students accommodates about 65 to 70 from

abroad. The faculty includes professors from all around the world.

Saarthi Abhiyaan
The Saarthi Abhiyaan aims at providing scholarship of Rs.10,000 to truck
drivers daughters who have completed their education till the 10th standard for
their higher education.
Mahindra Rise
It is a blog which leverages social media platform to give ideas and innovations
through the topics on agricultural, rural development and education.

Health & Disaster Relief

Mahindra Foundation
The specific objective of the foundation is to provide medical relief to the poor
and needy sections of society.
The foundation has helped patients suffering from cancer, heart ailments as
well as burn victims.
It has been very active during national calamities and disasters.
The foundation also extends its support to academia and other professionals
and sportsmen by helping them attend workshops and conferences overseas.

Art & Culture

Theatre Week
The Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) is an effort to encourage
national theatre in two broad categories - Emerging theatre and Established
theatre. They are in tune with the Groups Corporate Social Responsibility

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programs, which have already received a fillip in the Conglomerates 60th

anniversary year.

The Critics Panels are based in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

Six plays are selected from each region and are referred to the respective
Critic Panel.

The Panel from each metro city then sends the final list of eight productions
to the Grand National Jury.

The Mahindra Group also set up a Mahindra Academy for Excellence in

Theatre.

Measurement of Environmental performance indicators

Mahindra products such as vehicles are designed meeting International

standards of Safety and emission.

Mahindra Hariyali, is a mass tree plantation initiative undertaken by each and

every Mahindra location - be it a Plant/factory setting or a corporate office.
The Group has vowed to plant a One Million Trees across the Nation by
October 2016.

In 1984, the Mahindra Group started the Green Bombay movement by

developing and maintaining garden.

Achievement of past targets

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Social Targets and achievements

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Environmental targets and achievements

Approach to stakeholder engagement

The following are some of the ways through which Mahindra engages
with its stakeholders:
Employees
Trainings were held like by KPMG training session on GRIs fourth generation
sustainability reporting guidelines

Living Mahindra Experience (LME): The guidelines sheet for Mahindra

employees on what to do and what not to do
Annual Steel Conference where best practices and strategies are shared

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Annual Sector Sustainability conference is held every year to review the

sustainability performance
Week-long campaign Greens was organized where employees generate
ideas on areas like growth, re-engineering, employee engagement,
environment etc.
Eyons Caf was launched to share success stories among each others
In addition, there are publications, feedback surveys and one to one
interactions etc. through which Mahindra engages with its employees

Customers
Mahindra actively engages with its customers and solicits feedback from them.
The following are the some of the ways through which they do this:

Coalesce is a platform where customers meet, discuss about the present

initiatives and collaborate on new initiatives

Mahindra Finance had a special initiative of Bharat Awakens to share the

stories of people who succeeded with the help of Mahindra Finance
Mahindra Milan programme by Farm Division where the customers are taken
around the plant in Nagpur to give them an macroscopic understanding of
things in the plant
Automobile division arranged a free service camp M-Plus for Mahindra
automobiles
MSSL launched Keth Se Khaliyan Tak - to help farmers improve exportable
quality of grapes
Mahindras Online footprint is an online engagement drive to receive feedback,
to enhance customer satisfaction, engage with fans and build loyalty and most
importantly to address concerns

Suppliers
Suppliers are one of the most important part of Stakeholder engagement.
Mahindra engages with them at multiple levels like:

Sustainability Awareness and Training workshop for suppliers to bring them

on the sustainability platform
Sustainability Supply Chain Management (SSCM) workshop was conducted
at MSSSPL where suppliers came together and discussed their sustainability
practices.
Mahindra Automotive and Farm sector (AFS) ensures that the suppliers
follow Sustainability standards through frequent audits and suggesting
improvement areas for five of its core suppliers.
Suppliers Cluster meet is organized for bringing together Tier1 and Tier 2
suppliers of Automotive division .

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Dealers
Dealers are the channel partners and one of the most important stakeholders of
Mahindra. It engages with it as follows:

ITenabled Dealer Management Service (DMS) is an information sharing tool

connecting all the Mahindra Two wheelers Ltd. Dealers.
Automotive Divisions Mahindra Idols and Ustaadon ke Ustaad assesses its
dealers.
Mahindra Star is launched by Farm Division to reward its star dealer.

Local Communities (100)

Mahindra engages with its local communities as follows:

An anti-tobacco rally had been organized to sensitize people about the ill
effects of tobacco by Mahindra Two wheelers Ltd.
Mahindra Logistics Ltd. adopted a Avre village near Thane to help them in
solving issues like safe drinking water, school infrastructure, vocational
training and youth employment.
Swaraj Division launched the Swaraj Arogya Rath a mobile health van with
an objective to make health care accessible to remote points in Mohali.

Shareholders engagement
While generating value is imperative for any business, generating enhanced
value, ethically, gives the competitive edge. Shareholders at Mahindra are not
considered as mere recipients of benefits accrued via investments but are
important channels of valuable insight. Mahindras understanding of
shareholders aspirations, expectations help them engage with the shareholders
more meaningfully.
Mahindra engages in meaningful dialogues with the shareholders across
multiple managerial levels via diverse channels of communication. Some of them
are:

The Chairman, along with the entire board, addresses the investors and
provides clarifications at least once each year during the Annual General
Meeting, which is the principal forum for face-to-face interaction.
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) regularly reaches out to investors across
the globe during investors and analyst interactions (twice a year) along with
senior management.
In addition, there is a dedicated Investor Relations Cell to interact with the
investors.

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate website www.mahindra.com provides comprehensive information

and an exclusive Investor Relations section which informs and addresses
shareholder needs.
An exclusive email id investors@mahindra.com has been created for the
investors to register complaints and the same has been displayed on the
Companys website.
Furthermore, the quarterly, half-yearly and yearly results were published in
national and local dailies.
Presentations are also made to international and national institutional
investors and analysts which are uploaded on the website of the Company
and available to all stakeholders.
Information relating to financial results and shareholding pattern is posted
regularly on Corporate Filing and Dissemination System on
www.corpfiling.co.in, the common platform introduced by BSE and NSE for
electronic filing by listed companies.

Reports in public domain (Print & Electronic Media)

The print and electronic media appreciates the CSR initiatives taken up by
Mahindra group as a whole. The media highly regards the Rise for Good
campaign started by Mahindra as an umbrella brand covering the corporate
social responsibility, sustainability and corporate governance initiatives.
It believes that this new initiative will give strength and further thrust, drive and
synergy to the movement for the employ yes to be more involved in CSR
activities responsibly.
The media positively reports about the group's CSR and sustainability initiatives
focusing on four broad areas education (girl education), health, environment
and disaster relief.
The media in its reports appreciates the aim of creating one brand umbrella; to
motivate people internally and bind them around what Mahindra does for the
society, as well as thrill people from outside to join in .
The media validates the initiatives of the group as what started as an
announcement of the 'Rise Credo' was followed by 'Spark the Rise' platform
around three years ago to promote innovation, entrepreneurship and grass root
change.
The media also appreciates Mahindras target of spending over Rs.150 crore this
year on CSR activities, compared to Rs.42 crore spent last year.

Other pertinent things

Corporate Governance
Mahindra sees Corporate Governance as an integral part in its growth story. It
considers Corporate Governance as not just enhancing Shareholder value. It
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Corporate Social Responsibility

goes to the level above upholding the best industry practices to being a
responsible, ethical and corporate citizen. Mahindra makes sure that its corporate
governance philosophy is implemented by taking steps like:

Mahindras Board of Directors have vast experience and have industry wide
achievements.
Various Board committees are constituted to ensure operational
independence. Some are:
Audit Committee
Governance Remuneration and Nomination Committee
Share Transfer and Shareholders/ Investors Grievance Committee
Research and Development Committee (Voluntary initiative)
Strategic Investment Committee (Voluntary initiative)
Loans and Investment Committee (Voluntary initiative)
Corporate Social Responsibility Committee

Group Executive Board (GEB) is constituted, which comprises of Chairman

and MD, President of different sectors as well as heads of certain key
corporate functions. It provides strategic direction and enterprise leadership
and creates a shared vision and value system.

A Group Corporate Communications and Ethics Officer has been appointed

to institutionalize Groups core values across business units.
Mahindra considers absolute compliance is a cardinal rule which cant be
comprised upon.

Three key learnings for the team

The concepts studied in the class such as corporate governance, sustainability,
different aspects of CSR has been well applied by Mahindra in its policies. This
gives an insight into how we should go about things in our roles as manages in
the future.
Importance of teamwork was a key learning. Initially, all of us felt that the topic
was very difficult. But all of us sat down and started discussing on things related
to the topic and inputs from each one proved instrumental and we were able to
finish the project. Everyone has some qualities which is unique and working
together in a team helps to leverage these qualities and achieve better results.
Also, we learned to accept one anothers opinions by setting aside the
differences. This was important for the best outcome of the group. Proper Time
management was also a learning. With so many projects and activities in hand, it
was essential to devote time judiciously to different things. Learning from peers,
one of the goals of joining a B-school, was seen clearly while working for this
project.

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