Indian industry fares poorly in the Sustainability reporting rankings by EIO
The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO) released its BRICS 300 reporting rankings which categories firms into one of four classes based on their disclosure and verification status for emissions. It uses an overall ranking system based on various parameters and priority lists to provide overall ranks and country/industry specific ranks. This report includes 300 companies in the region (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The high-lights of the study include:
- 11% of companies publicly disclose complete and independently verified Scope 1 and 2 emissions data ‣
- 66% of companies do not publicly disclose their emissions data ‣
- 23% of companies in BRICS report Scope 3 categories, within a range of one to six categories ‣
- 6 out of 300 companies report five or more Scope 3 categories. ‣
As per this report Gold Fields tops the ET BRICS 300 Carbon Ranking, followed closely by Santander Brazil The top 10 is dominated by seven Brazilian companies; with two South African companies and only one Indian company namely Infrastructure Development FIance company (IDFC). Only seven per cent of Indian firms give out complete and verified data about their carbon emissions, while 11% report complete data on emissions. The top five in India include – Infrastructure Development Finance, Larsen and Toubro, Bharat Petroleum, Reliance Industries and Tata Power in the ranking order. Tata Power is described as not verified disclosure. Indian firms which have been ranked as the lowest in carbon disclosures are Jaiprakash Associates, Grasim Industries, Asian Paints, Power Grid Corporation of India and NTPC. NTPC is ranked 299th in the 300 company list that was reasearched for this report by EIO. Other significant mentions include Dr. Reddy’s laboratory which has been ranked as the 1st in the healthcare category in the BRICS region. Infosys and WIPRO have been ranked as second and third in the technology categories followed by Lenovo.
South Africa is the most developed in terms of Carbon Disclosure followed by Brazil. South Africa has 31% companies reporting verified emissions while brazil has 22% almost thrice that of India. It is the lowest in Russia and China. Both countries show only three per cent of companies having emissions data verified. While report points out that the countries in BRICS region were making some progress in terms of carbon emission reporting, they still had a long way to go.
The report states that while India announced its first National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2008, listing technology policies such as energy efficiency, mandatory energy audits for large energy consuming industries, and development of solar energy, it set no targets for reduction of emissions total or intensity. It further notes that the government is also trying to incentivise industry to move towards better energy efficiency and lower emission procedures by introducing market-driven initiatives, such as the Perform, Achieve & Trade (PAT) system, which aims to enhance cost effectiveness of improvements in energy efficiency in energy – intensive large industries and facilities through certification of energy savings that could be traded, and a federal approach to mitigation and adaptation with State-level Action Plans that require states to implement concrete actions to address climate change.
The report lauded the voluntary effort by noting that while India has not mandated any GHG emissions reduction targets for industrial sectors to date but its businesses appear to have been proactive in setting their own voluntary targets. The report can be found here: http://www.eio.org.uk/pdf/EIO_2011_Carbon_Ranking_Report_BRICS_300.pdf
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