V3I5P10

Sustainability Reporting Practices in Indian Corporations:  Adoption Trajectories, Implementation Challenges, and Consequences for Financial Performance and Stakeholder Perception

Dr. Geetika Tandon Kapoor¹, Vishal Verma^2,3*

Abstract

Corporate sustainability reporting- encompassing the systematic public disclosure of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance -has become one of the defining features of the contemporary corporate accountability landscape. For India, a jurisdiction characterised by rapid economic expansion, deep developmental inequalities, and an increasingly assertive regulatory environment, the evolution of sustainability reporting carries particular strategic and scholarly significance.

This paper undertakes a comprehensive secondary data analysis to investigate three interrelated research domains: the institutional, regulatory, and competitive forces shaping the adoption of sustainability reporting among Indian corporations; the structural and operational challenges that constrain its depth and quality; and the documented consequences of sustainability disclosure for financial performance and stakeholder perception. Drawing on a systematically curated corpus of secondary sources -including regulatory filings, audited sustainability and annual reports, industry survey data, stock exchange analyses, and peer reviewed academic literature published between 2018 and 2024- the study maps the Indian sustainability reporting landscape across its regulatory evolution, sectoral heterogeneity, and performance dimensions.

The analysis reveals that adoption has accelerated markedly following SEBI’s 2021 introduction of the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) framework, yet significant quality differentials persist between sectors, firm sizes, and reporting cohorts. Institutional pressures -coercive (regulatory mandates), mimetic (peer-firm behaviour), and normative (investor and consumer expectations)- jointly explain adoption patterns in ways consistent with institutional theory. Key barriers, including capacity deficits, data governance complexity, the economics of external assurance, and framework proliferation, continue to suppress disclosure quality across wide swathes of India’s corporate sector. Secondary evidence indicates that sustainability- disclosing firms realise measurable financial benefits -including reductions in cost of equity and bond yield spreads, premiums in price-to-book ratios, and elevated foreign institutional investor inflows -while simultaneously strengthening stakeholder trust.

The paper concludes with targeted recommendations for corporations, policymakers, and standard-setting bodies and identifies an agenda for future empirical research.

Keywords:

Sustainability reporting, ESG disclosure, BRSR, SEBI, Indian corporations, secondary data analysis, institutional theory, financial performance, stakeholder perception, GRI Standards, cost of capital, greenwashing.