IN THE current challenging economic environment, corporate social responsibility is fast emerging as one of Global Inc's hottest contemporary issue.

I will put this question up right here at the beginning. What lessons can businesses take away from the past two years of financial and economic instability?

Thankfully, a new era of responsibility appears to have risen from the dust of the financial crisis. At a time when trust in private enterprise is at its nadir, companies with foresight realize that greater stakeholder confidence is possible only by renewing their focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR), while building a future that is fiscally more prudent, value-driven, and transparent than ever before.

This is what will separate the winners from the losers, success from failure, and the men from the boys, to use a rather stale cliché. It is becoming increasingly clear that companies and organizations can no longer postpone CSR initiatives for another day.

Authentic and well-designed social programs are critically important in the current economic environment in which integrating CSR into business operations and communications programs will create real business value and drive sustainability.

Intel Corporation's Craig Barrett, a doyen of the global technology industry for decades now, summed it up best when he said recently, "You can't save your way out of a recession… you have to invest your way out."

In the Indian context, CSR has seen a paradigm shift because of changing governments, a dynamic regulatory environment, and current debates on whether the world is flat or otherwise.

Although we still lag the West in this area, there are several indications that companies in India are beginning to pay attention to social obligations and tying this into the economic and environmental aspects of business activity and performance.

In today's competitive environment, the focus on corporate responsibility is crucial because it will ensure companies are making positive investments towards long-term viability.

In 2007, I spoke to some of the most well-known names in corporate India and found many involved in sustainable corporate responsibility programs. This was surprising since it was always a well-documented fact that Indian companies have been slow off the block as far as social innovation is concerned.

Take Apollo Tyres for example. For a company that makes tyres, identifying its most crucial stakeholder group was a complex task. Yet it identified one group as the key – the trucker's community that drove its commercial vehicles segment and, at that point, also generated 70% of the company's revenues.

This was a group that was highly vulnerable to HIV-AIDS infections. Apollo's CSR program was a formal effort to spread awareness about the disease in the community while also reaching out to commercial sex workers, a large migrant working population, fitters, mechanics and helpers in the big trans-shipment areas where truckers operate.

Apollo Tyres is not the only Indian company that is integrating CSR into their business plans. The Indian mindset is rapidly changing and an increasing number of companies realize that corporate responsibility is not sustainable unless it is designed well with clearly earmarked resources and with a thorough assessment of the risks and rewards.

The IT industry, led by market bellwether Infosys, has always stayed ahead of the CSR curve, much before it became such a buzzword.

Established in 1996, the Infosys Foundation has been the company's philanthropic arm with the objective of creating opportunities and working toward a more equitable society. The Infosys Foundation has made effective strides in healthcare, education, social rehabilitation, and the arts. The company contributes up to one percent of its profit to the foundation each year.

Over the years, Infosys has tried to cultivate a sustainable approach to conducting business. Its conversations with stakeholders recognize the reality that a company must shoulder a larger responsibility that extends beyond its core business goals.

While Infosys has led the way in the IT sector, auto giant Mahindra & Mahindra has been equally busy with social programs like the Nanhi Kali project for the girl child and the Mahindra All India Talent Scholarship for the economically disadvantaged. The company has also been associated with the "Green Bombay" movement aimed at developing and maintaining municipal gardens in a city where clean air is at a premium, with less than half an acre of open place per thousand people. That is ten times less than Delhi and twenty times less than what London offers.

As part of its contribution to alleviating climate change, the Mahindra group, in what it calls the Mahindra Hariyali initiative, had pledged to plant 1 million trees across the country by October 2008.

Not to be left behind, Coca Cola India has been quick to understand the importance of water to its business and to the communities it serves. It partners with the Central Ground Water Authority, local governments, and communities to combat water scarcity and depleting ground water tables with simple and effective technology.

For developing countries like India, it will be crucial that companies and organizations tie in social sustainability programs with their business goals to create awareness both internally and externally. It will also help monetize social programs at par with other developed economies where CSR is already playing a huge role in business empowerment and sustainability.