corporate citizenship

16 Asian Steel Watch

Tata Steel: A Benchmark in Corporate Citizenship

Sourav RoyChief of CSR, Tata Steel

In the age of rapid global disruptions and trans-

formations towards a more sustainable future,

successful businesses maintain a dynamic busi-

ness model. While the onus may be on every

business to strive towards adopting sustainability

as a driver of growth and longevity, core sectors

like steel are often considered pivotal in achieving

global growth in a more sustainable world. How-

ever, the question of ‘how’ remains a

difficult one for the sector.

Tata Steel has deconstructed and

addressed this question in the 112

years of its existence. Part of the

150-year-old Tata Group, Tata Steel

has brought to reality the vision of its

founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata—

providing positive value to society

while exceeding the expectations of

stakeholders. The longevity of the

company provides an effective counter

perspective to the declining lifespan

of businesses worldwide—for context,

nine of every ten Fortune 500 compa-

nies from 1955 had gone, merged, or contracted

by 2016.1 Tata Steel is the world’s 10th largest

steel manufacturer with annual production ca-

pacity of 27.5 million tonnes, revenue over $19

billion2 and 34,000 employees.3

Tata Steel’s story has been the hallmark of

sustained growth, value creation, corporate cit-

izenship and business ethics. While J.N. Tata is

remembered as the ‘father of Indian industry,’

it was his belief that ‘the community is not just

another stakeholder in business, but is in fact the

very purpose of its existence.’ This provides the

unique genetic code of the group, and resonates

in a rich legacy of Tata Steel emphasizing social

and employee welfare much before any regulato-

ry requirement (provisions like 8-hour working

day, leave with-pay and profit-sharing bonus were

introduced at Tata Steel two or three decades

before it became law in India; Tata Steel has been

doing corporate social responsibility (CSR) for

over a century while it became law only in 2013)

and aligning business and philanthropy with

national development (Tata Steel was as much a

1 https://www.aei.org/publication/

fortune-500-firms-1955-v-2017-

only-12-remain-thanks-to-the-

creativedestruction-that-fuels-

economic-prosperity/, accessed

April 16, 2019

2https://www.tatasteel.

com/investors/integrated-

report-2017-18/consolidated-

profit-and-loss.html, accessed

April 15, 2019

3https://www.tatasteel.

com/investors/integrated-

report-2017-18/people.html,

accessed April 15, 2019

BEING A GOODCORPORATE CITIZEN

Vol.07 August 2019 17


nation-building project as a business).4

At Tata Steel, ‘responsible capitalism’ is not

just straightforward philanthropy stemming

from business success; it is the manner in which

the company applies the tenets of social responsi-

bility in conducting its business, balancing social

commitment with business expertise, and devel-

oping a cogent philosophy in which the compa-

ny’s long-term success is reviewed through the

dual lens of sustainability and financial bench-

marks.

This article postulates that a responsible busi-

ness (a) ingrains corporate responsibility into its

genes (b) creates efficient processes to develop in-

novative value-delivering products for customers

and communities (c) offers intellectual and other

resources to solve larger societal problems and (d)

approaches CSR not just as philanthropy but as a

mode of co-creating growth opportunities.

Creating total value through products and processesA business model pivots on the products (goods

and services) that the company develops. Not

only do successful businesses strive to make

products at optimal cost, they keep the value

proposition of their products relevant for cus-

tomers. Responsible businesses are no different

in their pursuit of value creation. All they add are

efforts to identify options to create a larger soci-

etal value while trying to tread lightly

on the planet—they focus on total

value.5 They have explicit social impact

goals synced with their purpose, and

can lucidly communicate with their ho-

listic performance stakeholders.

Tata Steel is among few steel

companies that have fully integrated

4Venkateswaran and Roy, “The

Responsible Business Model:

Perspectives from the Tata

Group”, CSR, Sustainability,

Ethics & Governance, Springer,

2019accessed April 15, 2019

5Ibid

Source: Tata Steel website

Figure 1. Tata Steel at West Bokaro Organizes ‘Kisaan Vaarta’ to Educate Farmers on New Farming Techniques



6Ibid

Strategic Objectives

Strategic Enablers

Sustainability Goals

Industy leadership in steel: Meet the growth aspirations

of customers

Benchmark in CO2 emissions <2 TCO2/TCS by 2025

Employer of choice

Leverage digital technologies, Steel industry leader

Industry leading capability in agility and innovation

Capability for global steel technology leadership

Consolidate position as a global cost leader

Zero effluent discharge by 2025

Insulate revenues from steel cyclicity

Safety leadership—committed to zero

Industry leader in CSR and SHE*

Create a lasting impact on the communities in our operating areas—

impacting 2 million lives by 2025

Figure 2. Tata Steel’s Strategic Objectives, Enablers,and Goals

SO1

SE1 SE2

SE3 SE4

SO2 SO3 SO4

SG1 SG2 SG3 SG4

operations. It leverages research and technical

capabilities to focus on manufacturing innovative

products with lower environmental footprint

along the entire supply chain. For example, it is

one of the first major steel manufacturers to de-

ploy energy-efficient and environment-friendly

vessels for ocean transportation. Tata Steel has

been innovating and delivering products that go

beyond meeting certification and legislative re-

quirements to improve the sustainability perfor-

mance of the operations and products

of its customers across the globe.6 For

instance, EzyNest Toilets made by Tata

Steel helped improve attendance in schools, espe-

cially that of girls, and contributed to the Govern-

ment’s ‘Clean India, Clean Schools’ programme.

The Tata Code of Conduct and several policies

provide direction on sustainability at Tata Steel.

Besides other things, Tata Steel’s CSR policy

states that ‘the primary purpose of business is to

improve the quality of life of people’ and empha-

sizes that it must volunteer its resources for this

purpose. In its quest to set benchmarks in value

creation and corporate citizenship, Tata Steel

has constructed its business model around seven

sustainability pillars—environmental excellence,

*Safety, Health, Environment



community care, health & safety, HR practices,

sustainable mining, innovation, and sports. It

uses stakeholders’ inputs plus those taken from

select UN SDGs7 in its strategic planning process

where its strategic objectives, enablers and goals

are balanced across all stakeholders, resulting in

long-term sustainability.

Sustainability efforts across the spectrumThe history of CSR at Tata Steel has passed

through different phases which ran parallel to

historical development in India and resulted in

different approaches. After decades of combined

community initiatives for rural and urban areas,

the fundamental difference between the imper-

atives of both regions prompted the company to

reclassify its initiatives. In 1979, it established

Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) to

focus on the rural community living around Tata

Steel’s operational units. TSRDS, which is also

an NGO, is the main driver of CSR at Tata Steel.

In 1990, given that the company’s operational

areas were predominantly tribal, Tata Steel set up

the Tribal Cultural Society (TCS). The Tata Steel

Family Initiative Foundation (TSFIF) was set up

in 1950 to ensure delivery of comprehensive re-

productive services at an affordable cost. In 2014,

Tata Steel Skill Development Society (TSSDS)

was established for focused work on skill devel-

opment. The Tata Steel CSR team comprises 600

employees across 12 locations with varying levels

of professional experience, educational qualifi-

cations, regional affiliations, and development

perspectives.

Tata Steel’s CSR themes got built out of the

intent to maintain deep and meaningful rela-

tionships with all stakeholders. The present CSR

system is guided by principles which provide a

general framework for selecting and evaluating

the developmental work undertaken. Tata Steel

does not only measure the lives touched by an

intervention, but it also examines the extent of

the impact, and it gets insights into problems

from the beneficiaries’ perspectives—critical for

identifying and designing the right interventions.

CSR at Tata Steel has moved from a philanthropy

mode to one where a joint effort by the corporate,

the state, and the community facilitates deep-

er-rooted socio-economic development.

While there is a dedicated CSR team, Tata

Steel gives volunteering opportunities to every

employee. In March 2019, as part of the Tata

Volunteering Week, 2,462 Tata Steel employees

clocked 4,575 volunteering hours. The company

runs a unique programme where business man-

agers get exposure to life in rural communities

and concepts of social development. Understand-

ing the importance of communicating its work,

the company uses various mediums to help stake-

holders and communities understand how Tata

Steel improves their lives.

With a continuous increase in spending as a

percentage of net profit (despite fall-

ing profits over the last three years),

Tata Steel is among the top ten CSR

spenders in India. It’s CSR spending in

FY’12 was 1.8% of net profit, 2.04%

in FY’15 (first year after enactment of

Companies Act 2013 which mandated

7SDG3: Good Health & Well-Being

SDG6: Clean Water & Sanitation

SDG8: Decent Work and

Economic Growth

SDG12: Responsible

Consumption & Production

SDG13: Climate Action



CSR spend of 2% of last three years’ net profit),

and 5.41% in FY’18. At Reliance Industries (high-

est spender on CSR in absolute terms), the spend

was 1.35% in FY’12, 2.85% in FY’15, and 2.12%

in FY’18.

With the mandating of CSR, opinions on

corporate involvement in society’s betterment

have changed. Many stakeholders consider CSR a

natural obligation of the company to share prof-

its generated through use of society’s assets with

society. Compulsion to engage in CSR has led to a

multitude of activities by multiple agencies. This

has raised stakeholder expectations, and they of-

ten draw comparisons between CSR activities of

different companies. However, many companies

don’t dive deep with their CSR because the law

has remained silent on matters like the depth to

which companies should understand the commu-

nities they work with, the under-served challeng-

es that CSR initiatives can address, the principles

of collaboration in the CSR space, the influence

that CSR should have within an organization, and

the composition of a company’s CSR team. Tata

Steel has gone a long way in addressing these

gaps with its three-pronged CSR approach.

Rural outreachTata Steel has taken up the mantle of creating

sustainable livelihoods in Jharkhand and Odisha

(its main operational areas) where agriculture is

the mainstay of the population. This approach

considers that while economic growth should

reduce poverty, there is no direct correlation be-

tween the two. It depends on the capabilities of

beneficiaries to gain from expanding economic

opportunities. Poverty is not only about low in-

come, it also includes dimensions like bad health,

illiteracy, and lack of social services. Since bene-

ficiaries understand their plight best, they must

partake in the design of policies and projects in-

tended to improve their lives. Understanding that

farmers’ lack of know-how of scientific agrarian


Figure 3. New TMH Clinic Inaugurated at ADMH Complex, Baridih



practices and institutional financial support ham-

pers opportunities for year-round income, TSRDS

developed platforms to connect them with agri-

cultural scientists and financial institutions.

TSRDS offers a mix of preventive, promotive

and curative door-to-door healthcare services

across Tata Steel’s operational areas through

Mobile Medical Units. The high number of neo-

natal deaths occurring in India are preventable

if correct antenatal and postnatal care is provid-

ed, along with awareness during pregnancy and

institutional support for deliveries. Tata Steel

launched Project MANSI (Maternal And New-

born Survival Initiative) in 2009 to address this

need. MANSI enhances the capacity of existing

government voluntary health workers in the

Home Based Newborn Care (HBNC) system. The

project reaches out to 220,000 households, cov-

ering 1,686 villages. It has resulted in a 61% re-

duction in neonatal mortality and 63% reduction

in infant mortality. Since June 2018, the field

staff of MANSI has been using tablets with proj-

ect-relevant applications along with a dashboard

called ‘Operation Sunshine.’ This has changed

MANSI’s internal management and has facilitat-

ed in time-saving in terms of the trigger for high-

risk cases. Another flagship project run by TSRDS

is RISHTA (Regional Initiative for Safe Sexual

Health by Today’ Adolescents), where it empow-

ers adolescents to make informed choices about

their sexual and reproductive health and overall

wellbeing besides providing coaching on life skills,

self-development, and increasing awareness on

ills of early marriage. The team links adolescents

with education, vocational skill training, and live-

lihood opportunities. In FY’18, it has empowered

19,601 adolescents and developed over 700 peer

educators in villages.

With programs like Thousand Schools, Res-

idential Bridging Schools, 30 Model Schools, IT

and English Learning Centres, Tata Steel has exe-

cuted its belief that addressing the three aspects

In most cases, gain to communities from industrialization does not

proportionately compensate them for the social, economic, cultural

and environmental costs borne by them. This puts a responsibility on

industries towards society.

The key takeaway from Tata Steel’s sustainability strategy is that

corporate citizenship efforts should always align with company goals

while delivering value to both society and the company.



of schooling—access, learning & governance—si-

multaneously and at scale will bring momentum

and sustainability to work to universalize access,

address learning deficits of children and equip

government teachers with skills.

Tribal identityTata Steel has a shared context of over 100 years

with tribal communities. Tribal Cultural Society

(TCS) has been the company’s primary delivery

arm in its efforts towards the sustainable de-

velopment of tribal communities in a manner

which respects their traditional wisdom, skills

and diversity. TCS works on multiple aspects of

heritage—language, music & culture, indigenous

sports, ethnicity, education, and employabili-

ty—to create a holistic way of supporting the

preservation of the indigenous ways of life, thus

enabling a closer link between Tata Steel and

the tribes. For instance, in the last five years,

Samvaad—a platform created by Tata Steel for

dialogue on tribal identity and an alternative per-

spective on development—has become a critical

meeting ground that allows tribal communities

in India and overseas connect and exchange ideas

on issues relevant to them. Thus far, over 8,500


Figure 4. Tata Steel Limited Recognized as 2018 Steel Sustainability Champion



people from 153 tribal communities across 29

Indian states and 21 countries have taken part in

Samvaad. Other than Tata Steel, no company in

the country works on preserving tribal ethnicity.

Urban ‘eye’In its effort to develop a well-planned town out of

the industrial town of Jamshedpur (where Tata

Steel’s main set up is), the company carved out

JUSCO (Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Com-

pany) from its Town Services Division in 2004.

JUSCO is India’s only comprehensive urban

infrastructure service provider, which manages

key urban amenities and resources efficiently and

responsibly to make them available and afford-

able for the last mile consumer. It is at the front

end of driving Jamshedpur towards becoming a

smart city.

Further, keeping in line with the founding

fathers’ steadfast goal of employee welfare, Tata

Steel established Tata Main Hospital (TMH) in

1908 to provide free medical service to its em-

ployees, their families, and the citizenry of Jam-

shedpur and peripheral locations. Today, it is a

914-bedded, secondary care multi-speciality hos-

pital equipped with modern facilities. It also dou-

bles as a teaching institute in several specialties

and as a college of nursing. About 432 of its in-

terns have been hand-picked from naxal-infected

zones of Jharkhand, of which 301 have received

placements at reputed hospitals and nursing

homes across India.

Tata Steel’s community centric interventions

at the urban level include ‘Masti Ki Pathshala’—a

bridge schooling programme for underprivileged

children from urban and semi-urban areas to em-

power them into becoming responsible citizens.

However, it faced unanticipated difficulties in

establishing the school with regard to abusive be-

haviour inherent in the lifestyle of the children.

Therefore, admissions into mainstream schools

remains a challenge. Despite these hurdles, 280

children study at Masti Ki Pathshala and 42 chil-

dren have already been admitted to mainstream

English medium schools. Recently, Tata Steel add-

ed three more centres for boys and one for girls.

However, the company does not exalt the effort

as it is mindful of the real-time number of street

children who still need to be mainstreamed.

Tata Steel’s fledgling work with the communi-

ty of convicts and under-trials in prisons in Jam-

shedpur focuses on inner conflict management

and basic skill development. It works closely with

prison authorities and hopes to use learnings

from this phase to create a model for a just and

fair restoration and reintegration. The soft skills

and conflict management modules have reached

over 200 prison inmates, and 80 residents of two

prisons have undergone specific vocational train-

ing.

Forward-looking strategyIn 2016-17, confronted with looming higher level

societal problems like lack of good education, op-

pressive poverty, and climate change, Tata Steel

changed its current CSR strategy from merely

meeting societal need in its operating locations

to going beyond the boundary to address or advo-

cate for larger problems at the state and national



level. This need for social innovation led Tata

Steel to deploy more digital technology to expe-

dite the impact of its development work.

Going forward, while Tata Steel plans to re-

main steadfast in carrying out its PCD (Proximate

Community Development) work for communities

proximate to its operations, a shift in focus will

be towards more sustainable solutions which can

come about by addressing larger and core issues

while continuing to provide services for meeting

immediate needs. Tata Steel has identified edu-

cation, the doubling of income of marginalized

households, and water and sanitation as the key

PCD focus areas (apart from routine services

provided). It hopes that in time, the PCD work

done on a scale with well thought-out models will

become an instrument of socio-economic change

across the broader region.

According to Tata Steel, more focus is need-

ed on change models which showcase effective

and efficient deployment, systems changes and

research approaches, and are replicable at scale

across a wide region. Referring to them as Signa-

ture Programmes (SP), Tata Steel believes that

these will enable it to advocate a structure to

government and other organizations working for

positive change and consolidate diverse resource

pools to multiply the potential for impact on citi-

zens’ lives.

The thrust of CSR at Tata Steel is primarily

on depth and extent of impact on the lives of

communities. The solutions that emerge from

this thinking process have resulted in unique

projects like the Development Corridor which is

attempting holistic and long-term sustainable de-

velopment across a region (not just a few blocks).

Community participation in development plan-

ning (micro planning) forms the most important


Figure 5. Tata Steel Felicitates Women Health Volunteers for Project MANSI



aspect of bottom-up planning. With the aim to

bring about effects of participatory development

based on local diversity and learning processes,

Tata Steel aims to work on micro-planning.

Since Tata Steel’s CSR efforts have gone way

deeper than just the surface, a new company ded-

icated to just CSR—Tata Steel Foundation (TSF)

—was instituted in 2016. Once functional, TSF

will be the single CSR strategy and delivery arm

for Tata Steel.

Key takeaway from Tata Steel’s CSR strategyIt is true that a vast majority of the marginalized

communities in India reside closely around re-

gions which are noted for industrial development,

and are impacted by movements in the industrial

set-up. In most cases, gain to communities from

industrialization does not proportionately com-

pensate them for the social, economic, cultural

and environmental costs borne by them. This

puts a responsibility on industries towards soci-

ety. The moral aspects of competitive free mar-

kets and the globalized economy call out for more

attention than ever before. For many, there may

be no clear synchronicity in the words ‘respon-

sible’ and ‘capitalism’ but successful businesses

have decoded the contradiction. They have run

profitable businesses with greater responsibility

and regard for the ethical dimension.

The above examples show how a company has

over the years remained profitable, grown and

continued to do so over a century while signifi

cantly providing value to all its stakeholders. The

key takeaway from Tata Steel’s sustainability

strategy is that corporate citizenship efforts

should always align with company goals while de-

livering value to both society and the company.

corporate citizenship

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