A Study of Sustainable Disclosure Practices of Indian Corporates

Abstract

The corporate governing bodies have worked towards governance, socially responsibility over the last couple of decades. They are now emphasising sustainability reporting. The focus has now shifted from financial to the non-financial aspects of reporting. Sustainability reporting also termed as Triple-bottom-line reporting, which means the company has now to report on non financial aspects like environmental, social, governance along with the economic aspect. This is evident by the release of the National voluntary guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic responsibility of business (NVG-SEE) by Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India in 2011; followed by SEBI mandating Clause 55 of the listing agreement with stock exchange in India in 2012; making Business responsibility reporting (BRR) compulsory for the top 100 listed companies (by market capitalisation). These non financial aspects have been well incorporated by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); a non-profit organisation providing sustainability guidance.

This paper is an attempt to study the comparative analysis of sustainability disclosure practices of Indian companies using GRI based index. The sustainability disclosures have been studies company-wise and Industry-wise. The study concludes that Indian companies have recognized the importance of sustainability reporting and the major companies are reporting on it. However, Indian companies do not give much consideration to their industries characteristics while disclosing information in their sustainability reports.