Green causes get less than 10% of CSR money; platform launched to up climate funding

Mumbai: Stating that environmental causes accounted for less than a tenth of corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding between 2015 and 2021, the India Climate Collaborative (ICC) on Thursday launched a dedicated platform to help funnel more resources for such purposes.

The 'Earth Exponential' platform, which is backed by JSW Foundation, will bring together funders and non-profits and showcase credible, high-impact and India-led climate solutions, as per an official statement.

The statement said in the seven years to 2021, environment-related causes got Rs 6,183 crore of the overall funding of Rs 67,193 crore in CSR.

The platform will be curating, evaluating and displaying home-grown climate projects, and enabling them to scale by matching them to funders, it said.

It aims to reduce entry barriers for funders through simplified solution discovery and knowledge building, the statement said.

"India's home-grown climate solutions offer immense potential to address climate change without leaving anyone behind," ICC's chief executive Shloka Nath said, making clear that the platform will not charge a fee for matching up the funders with the projects.

ICC has been founded by corporate and philanthropic leaders, including Rohini Nilekani, Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra and Sangita Jindal.

"There is an urgent need to address the critical gaps that could pose challenges on our roadmap to achieve the target of net zero by 2070. Earth Exponential aims to address some of these challenges by bringing together funders and non-profit organisations to address and plug these critical gaps through innovative, homegrown solutions," Sangita Jindal, the chairperson of JSW Foundation, said.

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