RIL, ONGC on top-100 global list for education CSR spending

As per a study, RIL spends $5.4 million on education related CSR activity while, ONGC spends $4.4 million

Only two Indian companies -- Reliance Industries and ONGC -- have managed to made to a list of the world's top-100 companies in terms of CSR spending on education, a new study said today.

Still, the Indian companies fare better than their counterparts in China and Japan in terms of the average CSR spending on education.

On the top-100 list, Reliance Industries is also ranked very low at 80th position, while ONGC is further down at 91st, according to the world's first comprehensive study into global corporate education CSR spend, published today by the Varkey Foundation in partnership with UNESCO.

UK-based ArcelorMittal, owned by Laskhmi Mittal family of Indian origin, is ranked 75th, while the overall list is topped by Spain's Banco Santander.

US-based IBM is ranked second, followed by Telefonica (Spain), ExxonMobil and Target (both from the US) in the top five.

As per the report, RIL spends USD 5.4 million on education related CSR activity while, ONGC spends USD 4.4 million and ArcelorMittal spends USD 5.6 million.

The top ten spenders on education-related CSR in the Global Fortune 500 are: Banco Santander (USD 197 million), IBM (USD 144 million), Telefonica (USD 130 million), Exxon Mobil (USD 116 million), Target (USD 95 million).

The figures are an average of the three years 2011-2013.

"The promotion of education and employment-enhancing vocational skills were two key focus areas for Indian companies, especially at primary and secondary levels," the report said.

The vast majority of education related CSR spend went to primary education (39 per cent), followed by secondary education (29 per cent), vocational education (14 per cent), followed by spending on infrastructure (14 per cent).

Meanwhile, there are eight Indian companies in the Fortune Global 500 list of companies in terms of CSR spending on education, who spend USD 15 million a year, on education related CSR activities.

As a comparison, the 132 US companies in the Global Fortune 500 spend USD 1 billion on Education related CSR, the eight Spanish companies spend USD 344 million, 26 UK companies spend USD 331 million, eight Australian firms spend USD 151 million, 62 Japanese firms spend USD 136 million, 31 French firms spend USD 63 million and 95 Chinese firms spend USD 52 million on education related CSR.

The report further said that the largest 100 companies in India based on net sales, plus information from the government on Maharatna and Navratna Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), showed an actual corporate spend of USD 57.9 million annually on education-related CSR.

The report noted that the entire 2013 Global Fortune 500 companies only spend 13 per cent of their total Fortune 500 CSR budget on education related activities and corporate giving to education is considerably below spending on other areas such as health.