Companies increasingly recognise that the health and well-being of their workforce matter. Yet when businesses report on their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance, one important aspect of the social dimension of ESG often remains overlooked: workforce nutrition.
A new white paper, Integrating Workforce Nutrition into ESG Frameworks in India, explores how workforce nutrition can become a more visible, measurable, and reportable part of corporate sustainability and ESG reporting.
Developed by the School of Business Environment at the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), with support from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNi), the white paper makes the case for moving workforce nutrition beyond an employee welfare initiative. Instead, it positions workforce nutrition as a strategic human-capital issue linked to employee health, productivity, organisational resilience and responsible business.
Importantly, integrating workforce nutrition into ESG does not necessarily require creating a new reporting architecture. The paper identifies opportunities to embed workforce nutrition indicators within existing ESG frameworks, particularly India’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR), alongside frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The proposed indicators cover five areas:
- access to healthy food
- nutrition education and awareness
- nutrition-focused health screening,
- breastfeeding and maternal support, and
- governance and reporting.
Strengthening the social dimension of ESG also means considering who is reached. The white paper highlights the importance of extending workforce well-being beyond permanent employees to include contractual, informal and value-chain workers, who may have less access to employer-supported health and nutrition initiatives. Ultimately, the white paper provides more than evidence of existing gaps. It offers a pathway towards making workforce nutrition recognised, measured and acted upon as part of corporate sustainability.
For the Workforce Nutrition Alliance, this conversation matters. Building healthy workplaces goes beyond what companies provide. It is also about what businesses choose to prioritise, measure and ultimately hold themselves accountable for.
Read the full white paper, Integrating Workforce Nutrition into ESG Frameworks in India, to explore the findings, proposed indicators, and recommendations for strengthening workforce nutrition within ESG reporting.