Corporate Social Responsibility at ReNew to empower community.

RENEW INDIA INITIATIVE (RII)

ReNew India Initiative is focussed on empowering communities and improving their quality of lives by educating and giving them means of livelihood in alignment with ReNew’s vision and mission. The program is based on three broad indicators of development: Human, Social and Natural capital.

As we move closer to the 2-degree Celsius threshold and rapidly use up the carbon budget, the adverse effects of climate change become more and more apparent, with anthropogenic activities exacerbating environmental degradation. The low-income communities and the marginalized face the greatest degree of climate risk, due to maximum exposure to the devastating impacts of climate change, be it on agriculture, livelihoods, health, water security, human rights, displacement and so on.

Among these communities, women and children are most vulnerable, and there is an urgent need for sustained solutions to safeguard them from these impending threats. Keeping gender parity and a brighter future for the youth in focus, building resilience against climate change within these communities becomes critical.
As a renewable energy company, our core business has positive cascading effects on various aspects of sustainable development, permeating right down to the last mile and empowering communities in rural areas where we have our operations. Our overarching goal is to act as a responsible corporate and arrest the worryingly rapid pace of climate change through well planned initiatives focused on building resilient communities.

OUR FLAGSHIP PROGRAMS

Lighting Lives

Lighting Lives

The Lighting Lives programme focusses on last mile electrification of schools with less than 3 hours of electricity through solar energy and transforming the delivery of education by establishing digital labs and working with students to shape up their minds for a cleaner and greener future. The aim is to ensure rural children have access to a modern, technology aided learning experience. The main objective of the programme is to transform education through energy access and sensitize the youth towards the importance of using renewables. With over 65 schools ‘solarized’, ReNew Power has directly impacted the lives of many students by facilitating a better learning environment through electricity access, facilitating better education delivery through ICT, enhancing digital knowledge, and increasing learning levels and enrolment and decreasing drop-out rates.

Water ATM

Community-based water management

Improving access to clean drinking water is an important pillar of ReNew’s CSR programme in the communities around its operations especially in the state of Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, ReNew Power is working closely with the local community along with NGO partner to construct Taankas- a traditional rainwater harvesting technique, common to the arid regions around Jaisalmer. It is meant to provide drinking water for a single or a small group of families and is an important element of water security in the region. Construction of taankas has also reduced the burden on women and adolescent girls, who traditionally were responsible for fetching water for their families and had to walk miles to the nearest water point. The taankas have been constructed in arid regions of Rajasthan for providing water to marginalized families. ReNew has also de-silted 8 community lakes in Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) and Jath (Maharashtra) providing water to people across these two locations.

ReNew Women India Initiative (ReWIN)

ReNew Women India Initiative (ReWIN)

The ReNew Women India Initiative (ReWIN) involves creation of self-employment and social economy enterprises in rural India, targeting rural women with an entrepreneurial spirit. It has specific objectives of capacity-building, social empowerment and promoting entrepreneurship and consolidation of business projects to develop networks of rural women entrepreneurs, linked to SDG 5 on Gender Equality.

Education Hub

Edu-Hub

Another social responsibility initiative is the creation of Edu Hub, an innovative rural community centre for education, focusing on capacity-building efforts for different segments of the community. Depending on the needs of the local community, training modules are designed and training is imparted at the centre in conjunction with local subject specialists and Government agencies. Across ReNew’s operational sites, 9 Edu hubs have been established.

ReNew Scholarship for Exceptional Talent

ReNew Scholarship for Exceptional Talent (ReSET)

India is a country with a population of 1.3 billion people and a distinct demographic dividend. Approximately 62% of our population falls under the working age group which makes the youth of our country the most important stakeholder in the journey of our economic growth. Despite this, the youth, especially at the bottom of the pyramid struggle to express and display their talents. The ReNew Scholarship for Exceptional Talent (ReSET) is a programme launched in the year 2016 focussing on identifying young and aspiring underprivileged talents across different fields and giving them an opportunity and a platform to hone their skills to help them grow and pursue their ambitions in their field of choice.

EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING

Employee Volunteerism forms an important part of all the activities undertaken by ReNew Power under the gamut of corporate social responsibility. At ReNew Power employees are encouraged to volunteer their time and talent in various CSR activities organized both at the corporate level as well as at the site level on a regular basis. Apart from these employees are made aware about various CSR initiatives undertaken by the organizations through different internal communications.

Rice Bucket Challenge

Gift Warmth

IMPACT STORIES

At ReNew, we are accelerating India’s transition away from fossil fuels to a clean energy driven growth model. At the same time, we are also striving to positively transform lives in marginalized communities through our CSR initiatives such as Lighting Lives, ReNew Women India Initiative (ReWIN), Edu Hub, etc. These activities are aimed at empowering communities and especially women and youth so that they are economically independent and can lead a quality life. Read More