CSR funds in environment: The Supreme Court has recently clarified that corporate social responsibility extends to corporate environmental responsibility. In a ruling linked to directions for protecting the Great Indian Bustard—now critically endangered—the court held that corporations, as legal persons, owe a constitutional duty under Article 51A(g) to protect the environment. Environmental responsibility, the court made clear, is not charity or discretion. It is obligation.
The case arose from threats posed by non-renewable power generation and associated infrastructure in Rajasthan and Gujarat. But its implications extend beyond species protection. By anchoring environmental responsibility in constitutional duty and the polluter-pays principle, the judgment narrows the space for voluntary interpretation of corporate climate and biodiversity commitments.
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Human-wildlife conflict as a development constraint
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) has become a structural feature of development across continents. Urban expansion, deforestation, extractive activity, and climate-induced resource stress are compressing habitats and forcing wildlife into closer proximity with human settlements. According to the World Bank and UNEP–WWF assessments, these encounters now threaten food security, rural livelihoods, and human safety, while accelerating population decline among large carnivores and herbivores, including over 75% of wild cat species.
A World Bank–led Global Wildlife Program (GWP) survey found that 64% of governments classify HWC as a major or serious concern, and 73% report that it is increasing. Crop damage (79%), livestock depredation (60%), and direct human injury or attack (57%) were cited as the most common impacts, disproportionately affecting small farmers and pastoralists. Crop loss dominates concerns in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, while livestock predation is the primary issue in Europe.
Despite this, policy responses remain fragmented. A review of 180 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans shows that only 24% explicitly identify HWC as a national priority, with fewer than ten countries having dedicated national strategies. North America and Oceania make no mention at all.
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Conservation without coexistence
Most existing interventions remain conservation-centric, treating conflict as a by-product rather than a development failure. That began to shift in 2022, when Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity explicitly incorporated human–wildlife coexistence into Target 4 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework links species protection with threats from mining, infrastructure, and land-use change, and acknowledges the human and economic costs borne by frontline communities.
The economic burden, however, remains under-measured. Available estimates suggest that farmers in conflict zones lose 10–15% of annual crop output to wildlife. In northwest Ethiopia, wildlife damage results in losses of up to $234 per hectare for maize and $153 for barley, alongside annual livestock losses exceeding $11,000. The loss of a single cow in low-income regions can erase over a year of a child’s caloric intake. In India alone, human–wildlife conflict results in an estimated 10,000–15,000 incidents of property damage each year.
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CSR funding and the financing gap
Biodiversity finance remains the binding constraint. Current global investment stands at roughly $143 billion annually against an estimated requirement of $824 billion. Although developed countries committed under the Kunming–Montreal framework to mobilise $20 billion a year by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030 for developing nations, recent assessments suggest these targets will not be met. The United States’ withdrawal from key global environmental funding mechanisms has further weakened already fragile flows.
India faces an annual biodiversity financing requirement of about $9.8 billion to meet its 2030 conservation goals, alongside cumulative investment needs exceeding $10 trillion to reach net-zero emissions by 2070. Between 2017–18 and 2021–22, the country recorded an estimated biodiversity finance gap of ₹46,000 crore.
Corporate capital and its limits
The growing integration of ESG objectives into core business strategy has expanded the potential role of private capital. Global private investment in nature exceeded $102 billion by early 2025—an elevenfold increase since 2020—driven partly by market-based instruments such as green credits. These mechanisms can generate income for local communities through sustainable land and agricultural practices, reducing economic incentives for forest encroachment and conflict.
Yet this momentum is uneven. The US exit from the Green Climate Fund has triggered a recalibration of corporate ESG spending. By early 2026, nearly 80% of large US and multinational firms had redirected ESG outlays toward projects with direct commercial returns, narrowing the pool of patient capital for biodiversity and coexistence initiatives.
India’s disclosure paradox
India lacks disaggregated data on CSR spending specifically targeted at human–wildlife conflict mitigation. In 2023–24, companies reported about ₹3,459 crore under broad environmental CSR categories, largely focused on sustainability projects or animal welfare initiatives unrelated to wildlife conflict. The introduction of mandatory Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting for the top 1,000 listed firms has improved disclosure quality and comparability, contributing to the growth of ESG-linked assets under management from ₹2,703 crore in 2019 to over ₹11,000 crore by mid-2025.
The Green Credit Programme, launched in 2023, seeks to incentivise voluntary environmental actions by individuals and firms. But regulatory gaps remain. India has no specialised authority to audit green claims, leaving room for greenwashing. Nor is there a legal framework to support risk-mitigation tools such as green guarantees, insurance pools, or blended finance structures that could crowd in private capital at scale.
The Supreme Court’s CSR ruling alters this landscape. By grounding environmental responsibility in constitutional duty, it raises the compliance bar for polluting sectors such as mining and power generation, and strengthens the legal basis for linking corporate activity to ecological harm.
With 44% of countries acknowledging that human–wildlife conflict is inadequately managed, incremental responses are no longer sufficient. Mitigation must shift from reactive, species-specific interventions to proactive, integrated management—combining international cooperation, data-sharing, community participation, technology-enabled monitoring, and shared public–private financing.
Making peace with nature, as the UN Secretary-General has argued, is not rhetorical ambition. It is a development imperative. The Supreme Court has now made clear that for corporations, it is also a constitutional one.
The author is former Director-General, Doordarshan & AIR, and former Press Secretary to the President of India.