GRI based sustainability reporting in India

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an organization that produces a comprehensive sustainability reporting framework that is widely used around the world. It started with a vision of a sustainable global economy where organizations manage their economic, environmental, social and governance performance and impacts responsibly and report transparently. GRI has a mission to make sustainability reporting standard practice by providing guidance and support to organizations. It’s about disclosure of organization’s economic, environmental, social and governance performance in credible way and subsequently helping them to identify business risks and opportunities to the organization due to these parameters.

GRI provide framework to report organization’s sustainability performance. It is known as the sustainability reporting framework and consists of three parts – (1) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, (2) Sector Supplements and (2) The Technical Protocol – Applying the Report Content Principles.  All it provide guidance on how organizations can disclose their sustainability performance in true manner. Organization of any size and type can use this framework to assess their performance indicators in economic, environmental, and social domain. Organization that creates their non financial report based on GRI sustainability reporting framework can be considered as credible output aligned with applicable standards and norms. Such report can be used to demonstrate organizational commitment to sustainable development. It can also qualitatively and quantitatively used to measure and compare organization performance based on environment, social and economic dimensions.

By September 2011, 43 corporate sustainability reports published by different organizations in India. TATA (Automotive) is pioneer in sustainability reporting in India. It has started reporting their sustainability performance from year 2001 based on GRI protocol. Following table shows the list of Indian companies with GRI based sustainability reports;

Sr. No	Organization	Sector	Starting Year
1	Mumbai International Airport Private Limited	Airport operator	2012
2	Ambuja Cements	Construction	2011
3	JSW Steel	Metals Products	2011
4	Jubilant Industries Limited	Chemicals	2011
5	Transport Corporation of India (TCI)	Logistics	2011
6	UltraTech Cement	Construction Materials	2011
7	HCC	Construction	2010
8	Jain Irrigation Systems	Agriculture	2010
9	JSW	Conglomerates	2010
10	KOEL	Energy	2010
11	Maruti-Suzuki	Automotive	2010
12	Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX)	Financial Services	2010
13	Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)	Energy	2010
14	Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)	Financial Services	2010
15	Sree Santhosh Garments (SSG)	Textiles and Apparel	2010
16	Grasim Industries	Construction Materials	2009
17	Moser Baer India	Other	2009
18	V. S. Dempo & Co.	Mining	2009
19	Wipro Ltd	Computers	2009
20	ABN AMRO INDIA	Financial Services	2008
21	BPCL	Energy	2008
22	Chemplast Sanmar	Chemicals	2008
23	Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories India	Healthcare Products	2008
24	Indian Oil	Energy Utilities	2008
25	Infosys Technologies India	Computers	2008
26	Larsen & Toubro	Conglomerates	2008
27	Mahindra	Conglomerates	2008
28	MSPL	Mining	2008
29	SRF	Conglomerates	2008
30	Sterlite Industries	Mining	2008
31	Tata Motors	Automotive	2008
32	Tata Tea	Food and Beverage Products	2008
33	Varroc Engineering	Equipment	2008
34	Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)	Computers	2007
35	Sesa Goa	Mining	2006
36	Shree Cement	Construction Materials	2005
37	ITC	Conglomerates	2004
38	Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd	Chemicals	2004
39	Reliance Industries Limited	Conglomerates	2004
40	Tata International	Conglomerates	2004
41	Ford India	Automotive	2002
42	Paharpur Business Centre	Commercial Services	2002
43	Tata Steel	Metals Products	2002
44	TATA	Automotive	2001

Considering the importance of sustainability in businesses, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India has launched Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Guidelines (2009). This voluntary CSR Policy addresses six core elements – Care for all Stakeholders, Ethical functioning, Respect for Workers’ Rights and Welfare, Respect for Human Rights, Respect for Environment and Activities for Social and Inclusive Development. At this stage these are voluntary guidelines, but there is a possibility of mandatory guidelines too in the near future.

The companies with GRI based sustainability reports in India have started accounting and then disclosing their impacts on the environment and society.  Sustainability reporting is now becoming a standard practice for global companies and If Indian companies want to be a competitive with their global counterparts; need to adopt GRI based sustainability reporting framework positively.

Reference: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)