Environment and Social Sustainability
IFC’s Environmental and Social Sustainability (ESS) unit aims to incubate innovative businesses delivering environmental and social benefits, demonstrate their commercial viability and encourage their independent replication in the private sector in emerging markets.
INDIA
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Training for Powerlinks (JV between Power Grid and Tata Power) – North India: The OHS Program was designed to (i) increase awareness of contractors, employees and casual workers of workplace health and safety issues and good practice; (ii) reduce the incidence of job-related accidents, injuries and absenteeism during construction of the Transmission line (T-line); (iii) raise general health awareness among T-line workers, their families and their communities including the prevention and treatment of communicable disease (e.g., tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS); and (iv) establish a model for OHS training for infrastructure projects that can be applied to other IFC-financed infrastructure projects. Key outcomes include training of 144 Powerlinks supervisors and 15 sub contractors, development and screening of awareness raising films watched by 900 employees and casual workers that increased awareness of health and safety issues by 38% between pre- and post-training tests.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Awareness Project: The project involves conducting the first-ever workshop for Indian corporates to (i) raise awareness among senior managers on international standards of CSR reporting, and (ii) provide guidance in working within these standards. A Sustainability workshop was held in May, 2007, which was attended by over 25 senior executives from various Indian companies. The second component of the workshop will provide hands-on support to Indian companies to develop sustainability reports and implementation of effective stakeholder engagement processes.
Global Leadership Network (GLN) project: This involves a pilot program in India and Brazil to make best practice CSR resources and tools developed by and for leading CSR firms operating in OECD markets, available to an emerging market audience. Through GLN, an exclusive website has been launched which provides free access to the GLN strategic assessment tool to help companies integrate sustainability issues into their core business strategies.
