ReNew as a socially responsible organization provides its employees with an opportunity to be engaged in social responsibility initiatives. Believing in the philosophy of ‘giving unconditionally gives us unconditional happiness’, ReNew has a concept of ‘Individual Social Responsibility’. In the year 2019-20, an employee volunteering policy was implemented which enabled the employees to formally take time off work and devote it across the many social responsibility activities that ReNew conducts, 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 organization through regular stream of internal communications. Besides participating in our array of CSR programmes, ReNewers have designed and implemented specific donation drives such as the Rice Bucket Challenge (conducted during the Joy Of Giving Week in October) and Gift Warmth campaign (conducted during the winter season), where we provide food rations and blankets to the underprivileged respectively. These 2 programmes are specifically managed and driven by ReNewers who visit old age homes, orphanages and conduct even roadside campaigns to distribute food and warm blankets to the needy. At ReNew, we have seen that employee participation in philanthropy acts as an adhesive, binding employees across locations, functions and roles together in a spirit of “giving back” to those less fortunate. This gives a sense of satisfaction to ReNewers and boosts their engagement levels.
EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING
Rice Bucket Challenge
According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, climate change is amongst the leading causes of rising global hunger. Extreme weather events, water scarcity, and land degradation have a cumulative negative impact on global hunger. As of 2019, India occupies the 102nd position on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) out of the 117 ranked countries. ReNew through its employee engagement program, the ‘Rice Bucket Challenge’ in a small way tries to contribute towards ensuring people do not stay hungry on the streets. Launched in the year 2015, the Rice Bucket Challenge has been instrumental in mobilizing employees for contributing rice towards this cause. The quantity of rice donated by the employees is matched by ReNew management and the total amount is distributed amongst the vulnerable sections of our population.
Gift Warmth
Gift Warmth is an annual CSR initiative at ReNew. As the earth’s climate changes due to carbon emissions from fossil fuels, many parts of the world are seeing extreme climatic conditions and unseasonal weather patterns. The Gift Warmth campaign is an attempt to help those, who are impacted the most by these extreme climatic changes. It is a humble bid to bring about a little comfort to those suffering from harsh and long winters, mostly in northern and central parts of India. Our aim is that ‘no one in India should suffer due to cold weather’ and towards this, we distribute blankets to the needy individuals who do not have the means to fight the cold. We have been doing this for over 5 years at ReNew.
The idea germinated in the year 2015 when we were looking to do something for engaging our employees and giving back to the society. During that period, we read reports that people on the streets of Delhi were dying due to cold and this is when this initiative was conceptualised. It started as an employee engagement activity and has now emerged as our annual flagship program.