India Inc high on sustainability reporting for growth

To achieve transition towards a sustainable economy, India Inc stressed the need of sustainability reporting and issuing guidance documents at the Third Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency in Amsterdam.

More than 200 speakers from business, finance, politics and civil society debated on the need to develop reporting both for financial and non financial aspects of business.

Indian Inc was well represented at the conference with ITC chairman YC Deveshwar, president of Larsen & Toubro RN Mukija, vice-president research, Nasscom, Sagarika Bose, and Ananat Nadkarni, vice-president of Tata Council for Community Initiatives. The ministry of corporate affairs delegation was led by R Bandyopadhyay, secretary, MCA.

In the opening plenary, Global Reporting Initiative?s (GRI) chief executive Ernst Ligteringen proposed that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting should become a general practice to help markets and society take informed and responsible decisions. He advocated that by 2015 all large and medium-sized companies in OECD countries and fast-growing emerging economies should be required to report publicly on their ESG performance, or if they don?t, explain why.

GRI also proposed ESG reporting and financial reporting need to converge over the coming decade and advocated that a standard for integrated reporting should be defined, tested and adopted by 2020. To enable the same, GRI is working with leading global organisations in financial markets, accounting, corporate responsibility, ESG reporting, and civil society to establish the International Integrated Reporting Committee.

The conference also marked the global release of the ?Carrots and Sticks?Promoting Transparency and Sustainability? ?the second global study by UNEP, GRI, KPMG, and University of Stellenbosch Business School. With the financial crisis aggravating the need for regulation, including corporate governance and disclosure requirements, governments have been increasingly engaged in mandating sustainability reporting and issuing guidance documents.