Scoring Sustainability Reports for Assessing Environmental and Social Dimension of Leading Energy Sector Companies

Abstract

The looming threat of climate change is increasingly placing the sustainability of businesses under scrutiny. The power sector in India offers a compelling context to explore the scope of ESG disclosures. The country heavily relies on coal, oil, and gas for extensive electrification, making it the world's fourth-largest emitter of pollution, releasing 2.65 billion metric tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere annually. In this paper an attempt has been made to review and analyse the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports of Energy sector companies in India. A distinction has also been made in public and private sector companies. Sustainability Reporting Maturity Model released by ICAI has been used to score the companies for the social and environmental indicators reported by them in the BRSR. It was found that although private sector companies are reporting the environmental indicators better, the public sector is leading in reporting social indicators. However, when it comes to overall performance, public sector companies outperform private sector companies.