Green Disclosure Practices in India : A Study of Select Companies

Climate change is a global threat with catastrophic consequences for the entire ecosystem. Greenhouse gas emissions, the main reason behind climate change mainly stem from industrialisation. While economic development without industrialisation is not feasible, it leads to environmental degradation that affects economies in the long-run. Thus the emphasis now is on a stable and sustainable growth path whereby companies integrate sustainability in the process of development. In this context, companies have started providing information about their environmental performance and policies to various stakeholders. The present paper attempts to study the extent of environmental reporting by Indian companies. A sample of 30 Indian companies was taken and their annual reports were examined to gather information about the initiatives taken by these companies towards making India a low carbon economy. Content analysis was used to convert qualitative information in annual reports into quantitative information and an environmental disclosure index was calculated on the basis of themes identified for environmental information. Our results show that companies in the automobile and IT sector have the highest environmental score while companies in banking sector had low scores