Tata Motors, Reliance Receive Tag of India's Most Sustainable Firms

By siliconindia | Thursday, 17 March 2016, 12:27 Hrs

BENGALURU: The Sustainable Plus survey on 14 March 2016 revealed that RIL, Vedanta, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Wipro are among the top 10 companies, which have received the tag of India's most sustainable firms. These companies were followed by ITC, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Hindustan Zinc and ACC reports First Post.

While the survey was conducted out of 100 companies belonging to 20 sectors, two companies responded partially and only 18 companies responded to the Information Request (IR). Other firms either did not respond to the IR or refused to participate.

“When companies in a sector do not share information in the process, they make a dent on overall sector performance. Transportation, other financial services and media had the lowest overall scores. That also reflects the lack of transparency in those sector,” CII
(Confederation of Indian Industry) stated.

After the survey and the performance evaluation process, ten companies including Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Hindustan Zinc, Vedanta, ACC and Reliance Industries got Sustainable Plus Platinum (ones that emerged as India’s most sustainable), seven including Bajaj Auto, Ambuja Cements, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Steel received Sustainable Plus Gold, and the remaining 83 companies got Sustainable Plus Bronze. Social governance was the next highest scorer due to the adoption of occupation health and safety management systems and dedicated Corporate Social Responsibility norms.

The survey said “The impact of requirements of corporate governance, and transparency and disclosures in the Companies Act 2013 have definitely helped companies do better on governance. “Companies have adequate disclosures on board structure and committees, whistle blower mechanism for key stakeholders, and risk management framework for addressing business, financial as well as sustainability risks. They also have employee code of conduct to ensure ethical operations and policy for conflict of interest management” reports First Post.

The survey also included, observation of gaps in reporting on aspects such as identification of sustainability risks and opportunities, measuring the effectiveness of code of conduct and risk management framework and rotation of auditors.