CSR THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Powering the ‘Social’ Criteria of ‘Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG)’ through Sport

In 2019, the Global Reporting Initiative revealed that 93% of the world’s largest companies by revenue already report on their ESG performance.

The compliance of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) goes beyond the realms of CSR or pure philanthropy, to a more holistically sustainable business approach using metrics that matter to investors and consumers alike in understanding a company’s social and internal governance practices. The fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic has given businesses a chance to reassess almost every aspect of their operations, intensifying the ESG compliance as a commitment to a ‘green’ recovery. ESG is going to play a critical role and will need to be fully embedded into an organisation’s decision-making.

Sport is a highly visible, and democratic tool that cuts across class, gender, ability. And we work with businesses to design and implement interventions for the causes they stand for - ranging from education, public health, women empowerment, youth leadership and excellence. And help them make and capture visible impact, whether it is employee engagement, diversity, gender, community development or women empowerment. We at Sportz Village Foundation thus help businesses to action their Social criteria within the ESG agenda through the constructs of CSR, sustainability, or social/cause marketing.

Sportz Village Foundation launches ‘Sport for Change’ Dialogues

Sportz Village Foundation launched a unique platform called Sport for Change Dialogues to initiate dialogues with leaders from the development and sustainability space who are driving the change through sport. With ‘Sport for Change Dialogues’, we want to chronicle and socialize exemplary stories, best practices from the corporate ecosystem and civil society - that use the power of Sport to engage children and the youtah for societal transformation.

The inaugural episode featured Annie George, Sustainability Development Leader from Decathlon sharing insights on how Decathlon uses Sport for sustainability. The second episode had Neelam Babardesai, Head of Sports from Tata Trusts share her views on the need to broad-base sport beyond the narrow vision of excellence.

View Episode 1

View Episode 2

Decathlon Foundation - where employees lead the CSR projects!

Decathlon is committed to make sport a vehicle for good health and social integration; and a large part of its CSR programs focused on sports education are driven by their employees. Decathlon Foundation partnered with Sportz Village Foundation to strengthen and scale their community outreach program. Under this partnership, Sportz Village conducted a study to assess the impact of Decathlon’s existing model of school-based community program and offered recommendations and resources to strengthen it with developmentally appropriate tools and training modules.

WHAT’S NEW

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY: Nurturing Problem-Solvers of the Future

Sportz Village Foundation conducts a first-of-a-kind study that could have huge implications on teaching and learning of cognitive skills in schools. Especially in times - when schools are looking for ways to bridge the huge gaps in the foundational learning of children.

With a vision to help children overcome the learning disabilities in numeracy and STEM subjects, Sportz Village Foundation launched a unique Pilot program to validate the role and effectiveness of play/sport in Computational Thinking (CT) Education. This is a step towards positioning ‘Learning Through Play’ not as a substitute, but as a foundational/bridge module for formal classroom-based STEM learning.

Help us integrate ‘Learning Through Play’ module into teaching-learning process in schools across India

SUMMARY 2021

Powering the ‘Social’ Criteria of ‘Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG)’ through Sport

With the schools shut across the country, Sportz Village Foundation continued to engage children by offering a unique ‘play/ activity’ based remote learning environment. Sportz Village Foundation partnered with leading businesses such as Ambuja Cements, Bata India, Godrej Consumers, DXC Technologies, HCL Foundation, Cognizant Technology and Honda Motors to engage and support thousands of children across the country during the outbreak.

Leaderboard (Digital): For children with access to internet
The Sportz Village Leaderboard is a ‘gamified’ online web platform developed to get children to be physically active during the lockdown. The leaderboard assigned weekly fitness activities to children on sports skills, yoga, self-defense and health education. The leaderboard also incentivises the children to complete the activities through points tables and winner certificates.

Race Around India (Offline) - For children with no digital access
The Race Around India (RAI) program (uses offline/ gamified tools such as Workbooks) to get children active in their homes and communities even without digital access. The workbook contains information and trivia on different cities in India, along with activities tagged to each city. Progression and points are decided based on completion of activities in a city. The workbooks not only get kids active, but also impart general knowledge on the different regions of India. The program helped bridge the digital divide by engaging thousands of disadvantaged children through a highly engaging remote learning environment.

Parminder Gill

Sandeep Rao