Title: GRI-aligned disclosures of Indian corporates: a study on environmentally sensitive industries

Authors: Karishma Jain; P.S. Tripathi

Addresses: Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi – 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India ' Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the sustainability reports of the Indian companies belonging to environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) and listed in the Nifty 100 index. Four ESI were chosen, viz, cement and construction, oil and gas, metal and mining, and automobile. Content analysis was performed for calculating sustainability disclosure score based on the GRI sustainability reporting framework. Results indicate that four out of 21 companies have disclosure below 50%. Further, it was found that companies have majorly focused on the reporting of governance and stakeholder engagement aspect (80%) followed by the environment (78%), economic (62%), and social (60%). This indicates that ESI companies prioritise environmental issues over social issues. Results of hypothesis testing show that there is no significant variation among the disclosure of the four sectors. Further, the cement and construction sector has the highest disclosure while automobile sector has the least disclosure in all aspects.

Keywords: ESG disclosures; sustainability reporting; Global Reporting Initiative; GRI; environmentally sensitive industries; content analysis; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2024.136594

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2024 Vol.31 No.1, pp.16 - 36

Received: 25 Mar 2022
Accepted: 18 Jul 2022
Published online: 08 Feb 2024 *

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