Sustainability reporting practices in India: A study of selected conglomerates

• Author: Anushree Poddar,Sapna A. Narula
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2238
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Sustainability reporting practices in India: A study of selected

conglomerates

Anushree Poddar | Sapna A. Narula

Department of Business and Sustainability,

TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi,

India

Correspondence

Sapna A Narula, Department of Business and

Sustainability, TERI School of Advanced

Studies, New Delhi, India.

Email: sapna.narula@teriuniversity.ac.in

Abstract

The evolutionary trends exhibit journey of companies toward sustainability of the major con-

glomerates, offering a learning for other smaller companies. This article investigates the sustain-

ability reporting practices of selected Indian conglomerates based on the Global Reporting

Initiatives (GRI) guidelines. The cases have been selected on the basis of data on market capitali-

zation (based on Bombay Stock Exchange database) and number of reporting years (based on

GRI Disclosure database). The study reveals characteristics and trends of reporting practices

and also traces the path of sustainability journey in terms of evolution and advancement. A com-

parison of reporting on economic, environmental, and social indicators has been made and the

results of the cases have also been also presented in a cumulative manner. The study opens

new vistas for further researchers in understanding the process of sustainability reporting in

India and is also helpful for practitioners foraying into writing sustainability reports.

1|INTRODUCTION

The article discusses in-depth the status of sustainability reporting ini-

tiatives in India with a special focus on conglomerate companies in

India. Reporting practices of four Indian conglomerates are taken into

account. Many studies are available in the literature that explores the

reporting practices of companies in various industries and also in dif-

ferent countries, but there is no study which focuses solely on con-

glomerates (Kumar, 2014; Kumar & Devi, 2015; Reddy & Gordon,

2010). Our interest in conglomerate companies is motivated by the

fact that these firms are extremely important from an emerging coun-

try perspective, as they affect multiple sectors and industries, and

other companies in their respective industries also follow their foot-

prints. Therefore, a detailed company-wise analysis was done of the

selected conglomerates by using case study method, which also made

the study novel from the methodological perspective.

We also assume a lot of significance in the light of the sustainable

development goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations as private

sector has a major role to play in them and communication of their

sustainability practices in the right manner is crucial, as a specific tar-

get 6 of Goal 12 on “Sustainable Consumption and Production”calls

for advancing sustainability reports worldwide to support responsible

business practices. Reporting helps a company to manage and engage

with both internal and external stakeholders.

There are various theories like stakeholder theory, legitimacy the-

ory, and political economy theory, which are insightful for explaining

the phenomenon of nonfinancial reporting (Adams et al., 2014; Thora-

deniya, Lee, Tan, & Ferreira, 2015). This article takes the analogies

drawn out by Morhardt, Baird, and Freeman (2002) as theoretical

background for the study. He suggested that companies venture into

sustainability reporting because they have a sense of social responsi-

bility of doing business and it can provide competitive advantages. It

also has benefits like the promotion of stakeholder relations and

reduction in operating costs for the future if done in an organized

manner. As businesses operate in a dynamic environment and are

affected by a lot of factors, such varied reasons do exist for pursuing

sustainability reporting, especially in the Indian context where CSR

expenditure and reporting has become mandatory for companies

meeting certain thresholds. It is observed through the analysis of indi-

cators presented in the further sections that the selected cases have

scored well on the indicators related to stakeholder engagement.

However, this is not true for indicators related to their environmental,

social, and economic performance.

This article comprises eight sections. Section 1 includes a brief

introduction to the article. Section 2 covers the literature pertaining

to sustainability in the Indian context and Global Reporting Initiative

(GRI). Section 3 highlights the objectives and methodology of the

study. Section 4 presents the evolutionary patterns and profiling of

the companies followed by analysis of the indicators in section 5.

Section 6 provides conclusions drawn out the study. Finally, the article

ends with the discussion regarding the limitations and outline areas

for future studies in section 7.

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2238

Strategic Change. 2018;27:543–557. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 543