Sustainability, ESG & Corporate Responsibility for Development Practice
What a company funds, what a company causes
India made corporate social spending a statutory duty in 2013, and roughly ₹40,000 crore a year now moves through it. This flagship is about the part the statute leaves open: designing a portfolio against a real district, negotiating an agreement that survives a March deadline, building measurement a chief financial officer will certify, reading a value chain for the harm a company causes rather than the good it funds, and reading a BRSR properly. Grounded in Indian law and Indian data — Section 135, Schedule VII, the CSR Rules, the Labour Codes, the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, CBAM and SEBI’s BRSR Core.
Statute-First
Indian Data
Interactive Lexicon
Why a Whole Flagship on Corporate Responsibility?
Because in India this is not a matter of persuasion. Since April 2014 a company crossing any one of three thresholds owes two per cent of its three-year average net profit to a defined list of activities, whether or not anyone in it cares. Roughly ₹40,000 crore a year moves that way. The interesting questions are therefore not whether corporations should contribute, but where that money lands, who decides, whether any of it works — and what to do about the far larger effects a company has through its operations and its supply chain, which no CSR budget touches.
Where this sits. Our CSR & ESG 101 deck covers the compliance mechanics in a hundred slides — thresholds, Schedule VII, unspent-money rules, BRSR. Start there if you need the rules. This flagship assumes them and works on what the statute leaves open. It pairs with MEL for Development for measurement, Causal Inference for what an attribution claim can carry, and Livelihoods in India for the workforce questions in Module 9.
Law first, frameworks second
Section 135, Schedule VII and the CSR Rules come before GRI or the ISSB, because they are the part that legally binds an Indian company. Every module opens on a primary source you can read in full.
Public data, checked
The National CSR Portal, NFHS-5, UDISE+, BRSR filings and annual reports. Everything the course asks you to do can be done from published documents, and the exercises make you do it.
The harm side, not only the grant
Four modules on what a company causes — value chain, emissions and water, the workforce it does not employ, and the governance that decides whether bad news ever travels upward.
“The Board of every company… shall ensure that the company spends, in every financial year, at least two per cent. of the average net profits… Provided that the company shall give preference to the local area and areas around it where it operates.” — Companies Act, 2013, s.135(5) and its first proviso
Assess Yourself — Sustainability, ESG & Corporate Responsibility
Six auto-graded questions on the core ideas of the course — the statute, the money, the evidence and the conduct. Pick an answer and check it; each explains the reasoning. Nothing is stored and there is no sign-in.
Papers & Resources
A short, opinionated reading list. The statutes are the ones you will be argued with about, so read them rather than a summary of them. Everything below is free to read.
The primary law
Companies Act, 2013 — ss.135, 166(2), 177 and 198, and Schedule VII. Then the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 as amended in 2021 and 2022, especially rr.2(1)(b), 2(1)(d), 2(1)(i), 4, 7(1) and 8(3). Read with MCA General Circular 21/2014 on liberal interpretation and the MCA FAQs on CSR (2021).
Frameworks and disclosure
UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) — short, and the source of the cause/contribute/linked distinction. The MCA’s National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (2019), SEBI’s BRSR and BRSR Core circulars, the GHG Protocol Corporate and Scope 3 standards, and IFRS S1 and S2.
The data you will actually use
The MCA National CSR Portal for company, state and district spend. NITI Aayog’s Aspirational Districts and Blocks dashboards. NFHS-5 district factsheets, UDISE+, ASER and PLFS. Company annual reports for the CSR annexure, and BRSR filings for everything else.
Sibling courses
Start at CSR & ESG 101 if you need the compliance mechanics. Then MEL for Development for indicators and use, Causal Inference for what an attribution claim can carry, Livelihoods in India for the workforce questions, and Public Choice for why incentives predict behaviour better than stated intentions.
Practice the Material & Continue Learning
Every flagship course sits inside a wider open-source learning network. The cards below cross-link this course with hands-on Studios, an AI study companion, the foundational 101 decks, reading companions, printable handouts, live dojos and the premium tools.
Three Studios do the work this course asks for:
- LogFrame Builder — the capstone results chain
- Stakeholder Mapping & Power Analysis — Module 7
- Budget & Fiscal Analysis — what government already spends in your district
An AI Study Companion for this course is not live yet — when it is, you will be able to question the material, get topic summaries and generate study aids at your own pace. In the meantime the ESG & CSR Lexicon covers the vocabulary.
- AI Companion · not yet available
Free 100-slide foundational primers that pair well with this flagship:
Interactive reading companions across the ImpactMojo library that deepen this flagship — development economics, evaluation method, and the politics of public money.
85 print-optimised handouts across 10 tracks — methods, ethics, frameworks, lexicons, quick-reference cards.
56 weekly dojo sessions in the South Asian dev-practitioner cohort — case clinics, paper discussions, live Q&A.
13 premium tools plus 1:1 coaching, cohort access, and certificates. Sliding-scale pricing.