India Inc catching up with sustainability: report

New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Corporate India is fast catching up with the highly progressive trends in sustainability witnessed across the developed world and influx of regulations and guidelines from the Government of India would provide a further boost to sustainable enterprise, says a report here today. The new FICCI-Ernst & Young (E&Y) Report on Sustainability, however, said there is a need for greater awareness and a strong will for businesses to mainstream sustainability within their business operations. The report titled 'Leveraging Value: Corporate Response to Sustainability Challenge' maps the sustainability journey of some of India's largest companies and attempts to understand how the sustainability challenge is impacting their businesses. The sample for the survey included about 60 companies that have identified their sustainability challenges and are at various stages of graduating to become sustainable enterprises. "The vision of the top management has been the most significant driver of sustainability in India. It is, therefore, not surprising that over 65 per cent of the surveyed companies reported that they have a primary responsibility center for sustainability that reports to senior management," it says. While over 70 per cent companies reported that they have a well-defined strategy or policy related to sustainability, more than 65 per cent of the companies reported that they have a primary responsibility centre for sustainability. "Around 61 per cent foresee new regulations pertaining to sustainability as inevitable in their sector in the next five years. Over 78 per cent set targets to monitor their progress on sustainability-related goals," it says. The report pointed out that almost 90 per cent of the companies assess their sustainability-related risk and 50 per cent have a formal mechanism to assess these risks. However, the report shows there is significant scope for Indian industry to put the required sustainability infrastructure in place since most companies tend to consider discrete elements such as environment, social responsibility or health and safety as being equivalent to sustainability. "This indicates that there is a gap in the understanding of the holistic components of sustainability," it said. For successful adoption of corporate sustainability across Indian industry, it is important that it is integrated with other aspects of the business, the report said. "Indian business, therefore, has to make a concerted effort for achieving the strategic shift in recognizing sustainability as part of good governance rather than just a good practice," suggested the report. PTI