Emerging phenomenon of corporate sustainability reporting: Evidence from top 100 NSE listed companies in India

• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Author: Kishore Kumar
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2368

ACADEMIC PAPER

Emerging phenomenon of corporate sustainability reporting:

Evidence from top 100 NSE listed companies in India

Kishore Kumar

IBM, GLA University, Mathura, India

Correspondence

Kishore Kumar, IBM, GLA University, Mathura,

India.

Email: akishore001@gmail.com

The purpose of the study is to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability

reporting practices of top 100 National Stock Exchange (NSE) listed companies in

India. Further, this paper also analyses the difference in sustainability reporting prac-

tices of companies based on the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) reporting, owner-

ship structure and industry type. Data were collected from the sustainability report

(SR), business responsibility report, CSR report and annual report of the companies

for the year ended 2017–2018 and 2018–2019. Content analysis of the reports,

Independent sample ttest and Cohen's dresearch techniques were used for data

analysis. Notwithstanding the uniform disclosure norm, the results suggest an incon-

sistency in sustainability reporting practices of the companies. It was found that GRI

reporting companies have significantly higher sustainability disclosure than non-GRI

reporting companies in India. Contrary to prior studies, the result indicates the

absence of a statistically significant difference in sustainability reporting practices of

government-owned corporations and private companies. The results provide several

practical implications for regulators, government, policymakers and companies. Find-

ings suggest companies should move beyond compliance of regulatory norms and

adopt sustainability code of conduct (i.e., GRI, UNGC principles, SDGs Mapping) to

improve sustainability reporting practices. Policymakers and regulators should

broaden the scope of existing disclosure norms (National Voluntary Guidelines) to

further improve sustainability reporting in India. The present study is one of the first

of its kind to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability reporting practices of

NSE listed companies’post-disclosure reforms in India.

1|INTRODUCTION

The notion of corporate sustainability requires companies to not only

address their shareholders but also communicate with other con-

cerned stakeholders including employee, customers, government, sup-

pliers, policymakers, NGOs communities, regulators etc. In the past

two decades, the interest and attention of the stakeholders have con-

siderably increased in the environmental and social dimensions of the

business activities (Azapagic, 2004; Crowther & Aras, 2014; Laplume,

Sonpar, & Litz, 2008). Various stakeholders pursue different ecologi-

cal, social, ethical and economical interests and expect the manage-

ment of the company to duly communicate their performance

(Herzig & Schaltegger, 2006; Kolk, 2004). In response to this, many

companies across the world are adopting sustainability reporting to

disclose their environmental and social performances (Lock &

Seele, 2016; Roca & Searcy, 2012). Sustainability report (SR) is consid-

ered as one of the most crucial element contributing to the notion of

corporate sustainability (Lozano & Huisingh, 2011). A disclosure of SR

represents the commitment of business toward environmental &

social performance and fulfils accountability to different stakeholders

(Andreassen, 2017; Dong & Burritt, 2010). Hahn and Kühnen (2013)

stressed that sustainability reporting helps the companies to legitimize

the environmental and social impacts of their products and services.

Several authors have argued in the past that the disclosure of

Received: 20 May 2020 Revised: 29 June 2020 Accepted: 8 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2368

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2368. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2368