Environmental reporting by Indian corporations

Abstract Environmental management has entered boardrooms, factories and business premises with economic, social and legal consequences. Sound environmental management provides corporations with a competitive advantage in addition to fulfilling corporate social responsibility and adding value to the business. The command and control policy of governments, the world over, has not produced the desired result. Corporate environmental reporting is emerging as a tool for the same. Indian corporations, like their counterparts in developed countries, took hesitant steps towards environmental protection – most of them driven by legal compliance. A selected few companies, however, took to environmental protection, enhancement and reporting through overall business considerations. The study indicates that environmental reporting, barring a few cases, is unsystematic and non‐comparable. Though good work is being done by some industrial sectors and some units in different sectors, the reports seem to be aimed more at publicity than providing environmental facts and figures. A good quality of environmental reporting, like good environmental performance, needs to be encouraged and rewarded. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.