Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility into Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Study of Business Models and Social Impact Practices among Indian Startups
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Abstract
This study examines how Indian startups are integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the design of their business models rather than treating it as an after-profit activity. The analytical concern is not whether a young firm spends money on philanthropy, which few startups are legally required to do, but whether social and environmental value is built into what the firm sells, how it produces and delivers it, how it earns revenue, and how it is governed. The study adopts an exploratory, secondary-data and documentary-analysis design. Evidence is drawn from Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and Press Information Bureau releases up to September 2026, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) CSR filings, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) disclosure rules, funding reports from Tracxn and the Impact Investors Council, and peer-reviewed research on sustainable entrepreneurship and mandatory CSR. By 31 January 2026, India had 2,12,283 DPIIT-recognised startups, of which 1,02,054 had at least one woman director or partner. Development CSR expenditure by companies rose from ₹24,966 crore in 2019-20 to ₹34,909 crore in 2023-24, and climate-technology funding increased from about US$0.32 billion in 2020 to US$2.6 billion in 2025. The analysis identifies five sustainable business-model archetypes and four channels through which corporate CSR reaches startups: CSR-funded incubation, value-chain procurement, impact capital and social-sector finance. It finds that integration is strongest where the social or environmental benefit is the product itself, and weakest where impact is added to an unchanged commercial model. Sustaining the gains will require simple impact-measurement standards for small firms, protection against mission drift during scale-up, and better linkage between the ₹35,000-crore CSR pool and early-stage impact ventures.