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| India Eco Summit: Q&A with Michael Hastings | | 'We have a big citizenship responsibility' |
| Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi Nov 10, 2009, 00:56 IST |
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KPMG’s Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity MICHAEL HASTINGS tells Sreelatha Menon about the firm’s corporate social responsiblity programmes in India. Edited excerpts:
What has been the focus of KPMG's corporate social responsibility programme?
When I joined KPMG, I tried to redefine CSR by renaming it corporate citizenship. It is not just activities that individuals or groups within the company undertake, but what impact the organisation has as a whole. We set ouselves a huge citizenship responsibility, a series of objectives and timeline for achieving them.
So as a corporate citizen, what are the things, that the firm is looking at in India?
Every day comes with a whole lot of issues which one can address and find solutions to. But if there are structural issues like women empowerment then a coordinated corporate initiative needed. We have just one programme in Kolkata and we are doing it through an NGO, CINI, which has been working for girl’s education and basic guidance of women on health nutrition and education of girl children for 35 years.
As for allies, I gave a dinner in the House of Lords last year for 200 industry leaders and I presume that they have all tied up in assisting CINI. Our job is mainly to create forums to channel in assistance for CINI to do the job of girl empowerment.
Is this being done in other countries?
Yes we have very successful programmes of women empowerment in South Africa and the United States.
Does KPMG have a global fund for its foundations in various countries?
No, each KPMG foundation is independent, and raises funds on their own, while getting a share of the comany's profits in each country. But they are answerable to the board of trustees on various objectives.
Have you been active and vocal on climate change?
We have made a measurement of our carbon impact country by country to see how much damage we do based on 2007 levels. Then we set a benchmark of cutting carbon impact by 25 per cent by 2010. As of now we are down 10.4 per cent in just 18 months since we started.
Where did you achieve your biggest cut in emissions? How did you achieve it?
Our biggest impact is in energy management. For instance if we had four servers, we switched to one and put capacity of four in one.
What about travel? Are you into tele working or working from home on the lines of British Telecom?
That is part of our policy agreement at the global level but we have 144 member countries and how fast member countries do it is up to them. We are encouraging worldwide to maximise use of communication technology and to cut travel.. But at the end of the year, the head of the India firm will have to explain why the KPMG in China has been able to reduce its carbon impact more than India.
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