The HR department of a multi-national corporation which is into developing embedded software, decided to get their employees involved in some CSR activity.

The employees were also told they would get credit for participating in the CSR activities. They took time to work on the right kind of CSR activity as they had to first of all get the right approvals from the agencies concerned. They also could not spend too much time on getting the approvals necessary.

Finally, they opted for a lake that near their office. All these days they had seen the degradation around the lake. It had a lot of visitors and when people came, they defintely came with their eatables packed in plastic bags, or carton boxes. After taking in the scenic beauty of the lake, the visitors or picnickers would dump their empty sachets and, plastic covers and bags after refreshing themselves. 

Since the road that necklaced the lake was the only way to reach the office, there is no escape for anyone passing it twice a day from noticing the degradation.

So, finally over 50 of the staff of the firm set out for the lake. In their orange attires provided by the firm which alone had held up the noble work by over a week.

Come the D-day and all landed up at the lake in their ‘uniforms’ with gusto they set out clearing the surroundings of the lake of the plastic covers, and other plastic wastes. Also, there were the discarded paper and plastic plates left there by visitors to the lake.

Within about 3 hours, they were finished with their work and patted themselves for the good work done. But, they were all dead tired from the hard labour. Now was the time for refreshments. Well, out came the plastic cups and tumblers, and plastic and paper plates. After they were finished, they just discarded the garbage on a side of the lake, just from where they had cleaned the garbage.

So, did they clean up the mess they created.

NO! They were too tired and were preparing to go home after a hard day’s labour!

“Some other firm will do that with their employees. We did our job,” said a participant.