Global Reporting Initiatives: A Study of Environmental Accounting Practices in Indian Electric Companies

Abstract

Financial reporting pattern is changing rapidly over time because of ever changing expectations of various stakeholders regarding both financial and non-financial performance of an organisation. Today along with financial performance disclosure, non-financial performance disclosure is also getting equal importance so we can see the debate on Integrated Reporting across the world. India is one of the fastest growing countries and having high interest of foreign investors, this naturally creates the necessity of meeting the information needs of international community. The present paper emphasizes on analysing the level of environmental disclosure made by the Indian electric utility companies. For this purpose, a sample of 5 companies have been selected among top 12 companies based on random sampling method and data collected through sustainability reports of the selected companies from2012-13 to 2016-17. Collected data has been analysed through content analysis, descriptive statistics, one-sample t-test and disclosure index. Finally, the study concludes that there is a significant difference in environmental disclosure and the GRI guidelines.