The approach of Indian corporates towards sustainable development: An exploration using sustainable development goals based model

Abstract

AbstractThis study aims to evaluate the contribution of the Indian corporate world towards sustainable development. We propose a framework of Corporate Sustainability Performance derived from factors suggested by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a component of a global agenda for sustainability. This framework is further applied to evaluate the sustainability performance of Indian firms to identify potential gaps in their sustainability efforts. The impact of factors like firm‐size, ownership structure, and environmental sensitivity of firms has been statistically tested for these firms. The paper uses a mixed‐method where content analysis has been applied to generate the data by analyzing disclosure reports of the top 100 Indian firms for the year 2016–2017, and a mathematical model is used to arrive at sustainability performance factors at various levels. Statistical tools like descriptive analytics, t test, and analysis of variance are used to test various hypotheses. The findings suggest a significant gap in the full potential and current status of sustainability investments by Indian corporates and hence confirm a huge improvement potential. “Cement” is the best performing sector, whereas “Media” is at the bottom of the performance stack. The Indian corporate world aligns its maximum effort along the “Education and Learning” dimension, whereas minimum effort is made for “Oceans, Sea, and Marine.” A significant difference was found for the performance based on environment sensitivity and firm‐size. Differences across firms based on ownership identity and concentration could not be established. The study highlights the implications for the regulatory mechanism that needs to change if the contribution from the private sector is required for SDGs.