CSR Activities in India: Schedule VII List with Environment Examples
Quick answer: CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. In India, eligible companies must spend at least 2% of their average net profit from the last three years on activities listed in Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013, which covers 13 areas including poverty, education, gender equality and environmental sustainability.
Key takeaways
Schedule VII is a specific legal list, not a general idea of "doing good." Spending outside it doesn't count as CSR.
CSR applies once a company crosses a net worth, turnover or net profit threshold, not just to giant corporations.
Environment is one of 13 categories, and it's broader than planting a few trees once a year.
Unspent CSR money has strict rules, including transfer to designated funds if it stays unused too long.
Real environment CSR usually blends more than one Schedule VII item, and works best as a programme rather than a single event.
Introduction
Your company has crossed a revenue or profit threshold, and now someone from finance mentions a three-letter term: CSR. Suddenly, you’re looking up eligible activities, spending requirements, and what your company can actually do with its CSR budget.
The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch. In India, Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013, lists the broad categories of activities that qualify for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). These include environmental sustainability, education, healthcare, rural development, and more.
The trick is knowing which activities qualify, how much your company needs to spend, and how to turn that obligation into a meaningful project. If you’re particularly interested in environmental CSR, there are several ways to support waste management, biodiversity conservation, water conservation, and other sustainability initiatives.
Let’s start with the CSR full form, then look at the eligible activities under Schedule VII, the rules governing CSR spending, and practical environmental projects your company can consider.
What is CSR, and what's its full form?
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. In India, it isn't just a company being generally good, it's a legal obligation under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, tied to a specific list of approved activities. That's really the whole answer to the "full form" question. The more useful question, and the one this article actually answers, is what counts and who has to do it.
Who has to do CSR in India?
Under Section 135(1), a company must set up a CSR committee and comply with these rules if it meets any one of three thresholds in the immediately preceding financial year:
Net worth of ₹500 crore or more, or
Turnover of ₹1,000 crore or more, or
Net profit of ₹5 crore or more.
This applies to private companies and foreign companies operating in India too, not just large listed firms. Once a company qualifies, it must spend at least 2% of its average net profit from the preceding three financial years on CSR, and administrative overheads can't eat up more than 5% of that total spend. If a company stops meeting any of the three thresholds for three consecutive years, it's no longer bound by Section 135.
The full CSR activities list under Schedule VII
This is the part most people searching "CSR activities list" actually want, so here it is in full, straight from the Act itself.
Item | Activity (as per the Companies Act, 2013) |
(i) | Eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting health care including preventive health care and sanitation, including contribution to the Swachh Bharat Kosh, and making available safe drinking water |
(ii) | Promoting education, including special education and employment-enhancing vocational skills, especially among children, women, the elderly and the differently abled, and livelihood enhancement projects |
(iii) | Promoting gender equality, empowering women, homes and hostels for women and orphans, old age homes and day care centres for senior citizens, and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups |
(iv) | Ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agroforestry, conservation of natural resources, and maintaining quality of soil, air and water, including contribution to the Clean Ganga Fund |
(v) | Protection of national heritage, art and culture, including restoration of historic buildings and works of art, public libraries, and traditional arts and handicrafts |
(vi) | Measures for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents, including CAPF and CPMF veterans |
(vii) | Training to promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, Paralympic sports and Olympic sports |
(viii) | Contribution to the PM National Relief Fund, PM CARES Fund, or any other central government fund for socio-economic development and welfare of SC/ST, OBCs, minorities and women |
(ix) | Contributions to incubators and R&D projects in science, technology, engineering and medicine funded by government bodies, and to public-funded universities, IITs, national laboratories and similar institutions, aimed at the SDGs |
(x) | Rural development projects |
(xi) | Slum area development |
(xii) | Disaster management, including relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction activities |
(xiii) | Subscription to zero-coupon, zero-principal instruments on the Social Stock Exchange |
One thing worth knowing: the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has clarified that CSR money can't be spent on anything outside this list. That doesn't mean the list is rigid in practice, its scope has been interpreted fairly generously over time through MCA circulars, but it does mean every project needs to trace back to one of these 13 items. Activities that don't count include normal business operations, political party contributions, projects that benefit only a company's own employees and their families, and sponsorships done purely for marketing benefit.
The environment clause, explained
Item (iv) is where this article really lives, and it's worth slowing down on because it covers a lot more ground than people assume. It reads: "ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agroforestry, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water," plus a specific mention of the Clean Ganga Fund.
In practice, that one clause covers tree plantation, water conservation, waste management, animal welfare work, biodiversity and habitat restoration, soil and air quality projects, and agroforestry, not just a once-a-year planting event with a group photo. And depending on the project, environment-focused CSR can also touch rural development (item x) and disaster management (item xii) at the same time.
Real environment CSR examples companies run in India
Here's where the list turns into something you can actually plan around.
Tree plantation and afforestation. This is the most common environment CSR activity in India, and for good reason: it's measurable, visible, and genuinely effective when done properly. A mature native tree sequesters roughly 22 kg of CO2 a year, which gives sustainability teams a real number to report rather than a vague claim. Done well, it also pulls double duty as one of the most employee-loved CSR activities there is. If you want to see how this actually looks on the ground, how businesses can lead tree plantation initiatives walks through a real event Greenmyna ran with Listen Lights and the Emerald Foundation, where participants used the Miyawaki method to plant over 1,000 trees in a single day. And if employee engagement is as much the goal as the environmental outcome, how corporate tree planting drives employee engagement and CSR breaks down why these events consistently outperform typical team-building exercises, plus what to look for in a credible plantation partner.
Water conservation. Rainwater harvesting, water body rejuvenation and wastewater treatment support all sit comfortably inside item (iv).
Waste management. Composting, recycling infrastructure, and community segregation drives count as conservation of natural resources and maintaining soil and water quality.
Biodiversity and animal welfare. Urban greening, habitat restoration, and partnerships with animal shelters all fall squarely within the clause.
Agroforestry. Projects that combine tree planting with farming support rural livelihoods while still counting as environment CSR, since the item names agroforestry directly.
One thing worth factoring in if tree plantation is on your shortlist: India's Green Credit Programme, run by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, lets entities earn a Green Credit for each tree that survives past a set verification period on registered forest land. It's a separate scheme from CSR, but the two increasingly overlap, since a well-structured tree plantation programme can satisfy Schedule VII and generate Green Credits at the same time. It's worth understanding the compliance side before committing a budget, since the rules here are specific about what counts and how it's verified.
CSR for small and mid-sized companies
You don't need to have crossed the Section 135 thresholds to run environment CSR. Plenty of smaller businesses run lighter-touch versions, like neighbourhood cleanups, sapling drives, or sponsoring a set number of trees through an established partner, as a way to build team spirit and brand trust well before they're legally required to. Starting with one recurring, low-cost activity tends to work better than a scattered, one-off gesture.
What happens to unspent CSR money
This is the part most "CSR activities list" articles skip, and it genuinely matters for planning. For ongoing projects, any unspent amount has to move into a special "Unspent CSR Account" within 30 days of the financial year ending. If money is still sitting unspent after three financial years, it has to be transferred to one of the funds named in Schedule VII, such as the PM's National Relief Fund, within 30 days of that third year closing.
Get this wrong, and the penalties are real: twice the unspent amount or ₹1 crore, whichever is less, for the company, with smaller penalties for the officers responsible. The practical fix is simple. Start your environment CSR planning in the first half of the financial year, not the fourth quarter, so you're not racing a deadline with a budget still sitting unspent.
A practical checklist before you start
Check your obligation. Confirm whether your company crosses the net worth, turnover or net profit threshold under Section 135.
Pick within item (iv). Choose one or two concrete activities, tree plantation, water conservation, waste management, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Set measurable targets. Trees planted and their survival rate at 24 months, kilograms of waste diverted, litres of water harvested, not just a headline attendance number.
Partner with the right implementer. Forest departments for Green Credit-linked plantation, local municipal bodies for cleanups, and verified NGOs or sustainability partners for broader projects.
Track and report properly. CSR spending and outcomes go into your company's Annual Report and CSR filings, so build tracking from day one rather than reconstructing it at year end.
Where CSR and ESG start to overlap
It's worth knowing that CSR and ESG aren't the same thing, even though they get used interchangeably. CSR is project-based spending governed by the Companies Act, covering how a fixed 2% of profit gets allocated. ESG is a broader lens on how a company actually runs itself day to day, its emissions, governance, supply chain and risk management, increasingly tracked through SEBI's BRSR framework for listed companies. The two are converging fast though: a well-documented tree plantation programme, for instance, can satisfy your Schedule VII obligation and feed directly into your ESG disclosures at the same time. Corporate sustainability in 2026: what Indian businesses must do to stay ESG-compliant lays out exactly where the line between the two sits, and what's changing as BRSR Core reporting expands over the next few years.
The bottom line
CSR in India isn't a vague goodwill gesture, it's a specific legal list with real money and real deadlines attached. Environment is one of the broadest categories on that list, and companies that pick one or two concrete, trackable activities tend to get far more out of their CSR budget than those that scatter it across a dozen small gestures. Whether you're newly crossing the threshold or just looking for a better way to spend what you already allocate, Schedule VII gives you the boundaries. What you build inside them is up to you.
Plan an environmental CSR activity with Greenmyna, and get a programme built on verified data and real community partnerships, not a one-day photo opportunity.
FAQs
1. What is the full form of CSR?
Corporate Social Responsibility. In India it's governed by Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, and tied to the activities list in Schedule VII.
2. What is the CSR activities list under Schedule VII?
Thirteen categories, covering poverty and health, education, gender equality, environment, heritage, armed forces welfare, sports, government relief funds, R&D and incubators, rural development, slum development, disaster management, and Social Stock Exchange instruments.
3. Do small businesses have to do CSR in India?
Only once they cross the net worth, turnover or net profit thresholds under Section 135. Below that, many smaller businesses still run voluntary environment CSR for the brand and team-building benefits.
4. Can a company spend CSR money on anything it wants?
No. Spending has to fall within Schedule VII's listed activities, and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has clarified this directly. Normal business activities, political contributions, and marketing-driven sponsorships don't qualify.
5. What happens if a company doesn't spend its full CSR budget?
Unspent amounts for ongoing projects go into a special account, and if they're still unspent after three financial years, they must transfer to a Schedule VII fund. Missing these deadlines carries financial penalties for the company and its officers.
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