Exploring the factors for effective sustainability reporting: A survey of indian chemical industry

Abstract

Sustainability reporting is nowadays considered to be an important tool to showcase the environmental social and economic performance of an organization. Although different frameworks for reporting are available the adoption of reporting are still less in numbers in India. The research paper aims at understanding the perception and awareness about sustainability reporting that prevails across the chemical industry in India and also tries to find the major drivers and impediments of effective sustainability reporting as perceived by the industry participants through empirical analysis. The paper also tries to identify the major factors on which the industry wants to report their sustainable performance through exploratory factor analysis. A survey was carried out in Gujarat and Maharashtra the two chemical industries infested states of India among the decision makers of different chemical firms responsible for firm’s reporting of both financial and non-financial performance. The research shows that sustainability as a concept is welcome by the industry but as a reporting process it has failed to reach the desired level of reporting due to its complexity and therefore non acceptance. The research identifies the different factors on which the industry wants to report and also finds the most important drivers and the major problems of sustainability reporting.