Home--News
Comment: Corporate Responsibility in India Needs to Wake up to Quality Reporting
Sachin Joshi
Centre for Social Markets
January 6, 2005
Companies in India enjoy touting their socially responsible credentials,
but are failing to demonstrate accountability in real, meaningful
reporting, says Sachin Joshi. Corporate responsibility in India has
come out of its infancy and has become a business in itself. If one
goes by the number of companies touting their achievements, civil
society groups and consultants offering ethical corporate services,
and government framing policies to involve business in development
issues, then corporate responsibility has evolved to be acceptable
to all, at least in concept.
However, despite all this frenzied activity, there is hardly any structured
reporting by all these commercial and non-commercial organisations
about their actions.
There are only three companies Tata group, Ford India, and Jubilant
Organosys, that follow the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines.
To their credit, about 18 Tata group companies have produced or are
in the process of developing their sustainability reports.
The other companies prefer to report their corporate responsibility
practices through company websites and other public relations publications.
While some rudimentary measurement takes place, deriving economic
and financial benefits from these existing reports is virtually impossible.
More glaring is the extensive talk by companies in India about their
community initiatives rather than internal practices such as corporate
governance, transparency and disclosure issues.
Also missing are consumer benefits, employee welfare and benefits,
political engagement, supply chain issues, and real emerging market
policies, among others.
In a way, most reports are there simply to mask what’s going on within
the opaque walls of the organisation.
Talk to business and NGO representatives about their corporate responsibility
activities, and they begin and end with community initiatives. Delve
more into their internal corporate responsibility policies and they
go dumb! And for their part, NGOs are mostly happy to continue with
their development work as businesses emerge as an alternate funding
source to individual and government donations.
There is a huge performance and ethics gap between how companies treat
their stakeholders, and their claims. For instance, recently Pepsi
and Coca-Cola in India were directed by a state High Court to label
their bottles with all ingredients; they moved the court to the Indian
Supreme Court, only to face a defeat.
Coca-Cola continues to face agitation from local communities around
its plant in the southern state of Kerala; the agitation is now a
thousand days old. Ironically, Pepsi and Coca-Cola claim to be socially
responsible in India, and have HIV/AIDS and water harvesting projects
respectively. Are they socially responsible in the true sense?
Ford India may claim to be the first multinational company in India
to produce a sustainability report, but it has a long way to go on
improving its environmental performance going by the ‘green leaf’
ratings of the famous Indian NGO The Centre for Science and Environment.
Isn’t corporate responsibility meant to be viewed as a comprehensive
agenda to address all issues? Not at the moment.
It is startling that the support businesses receive from NGOs and
corporate responsibility awards instituted by business chambers helps
further this green wash. Are companies to be recognised and rewarded
on their piece-meal community initiatives when their own house is
in disorder and no one is allowed to look into it at will?
Reliance Energy continues to pollute the soil around its plant in
Maharashtra, even after being held responsible for it. Rather than
correcting its own operations, it is busy influencing policymakers
and authorities to revise the local law in its favour.
This at a time when its chief Anil Ambani was given the ‘CEO of the
Year’ award at the Platts Global Energy Awards for 2004 in New York.
These illustrations are not meant to disfigure all the genuine good
happenings in India, but to pause and reflect on the state of affairs.
Furthermore, businesses do not want any corporate responsibility reporting
to be mandated, and they resist any mandatory disclosures before sometimes
giving in to the civil society pressures or judicial system as seen
above.
At two different corporate responsibility conferences held recently
in Delhi, the writer asked representatives of the companies that have
produced sustainability reports on their views of the idea of mandatory
reporting. Unsurprisingly, the answer was ‘No’.
These companies have employed resources to develop the few reports
so far in response to international pressures. They wouldn’t, however,
support the idea of the Indian government or the stock exchange regulator
mandating reporting.
They also fear misreporting and mis-auditing by third parties, adding
to already widely prevalent corrupt and unethical practices in Indian
business. It is strange that companies on one hand complain about
corruption in the Indian system, while on the other hand they are
often integral partners and sponsors of the same. The Indian system
will never be free of corruption if businesses don’t behave themselves.
In conclusion, but a beginning of a useful thought, corporate responsibility
reports about India need to be absorbed with caution. It is important
to look beyond the obvious and question every statement made by both
businesses and NGOs about the improvements on the Indian environmental
and social responsibility scene.
Sachin Joshi is a Researcher with the UK- and India-based Centre for
Social Markets. The views expressed are strictly of the author and
not of the organisation.
FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. India Resource Center is making this article available in our efforts to advance the understanding of corporate accountability, human rights, labor rights, social and environmental justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|