ASSESSING SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING OF INDIAN INFRASTRUCTURE FIRMS

: This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of Business sustainability. The main purpose of the research is to look at the quality of sustainability reports of Indian infrastructure firms and use scoring method from literary sources for solving the problem and the issue of Business sustainability. The relevance of this scientific problem decision is that it adds to the literature of sustainability of firms. Investigation of the topic in this paper is carried out by using the Global Reporting Index (GRI) framework viz., economic, environment and social factors Methodological tools of the research methods were scoring methods which has been used for decade by the researchers in this field of study. The object of research is the analysis of sustainability reports of Indian Infrastructure firm because this sector faces namely external business environment negativities in Indian context. The paper presents the results of an empirical analysis by comparing large, medium and small firms, which showed that difference inside the large, medium, small group of companies. We find support to the earlier researches that have shown, large companies report better sustainability scores more than smaller ones on sustainability reporting. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves the resources based view of strategic management. The results of the research can be useful for policy makers who can promulgate better incentive and provide technical expertise to medium and small firms to enhance their sustainability reporting.


Introduction
The concept of Sustainable development was originated in the Brundtland Report entitled "Our Common Future" by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (UNWCED, 1987). Subsequently, many countries have incorporated the principles of sustainability in their programmes and policies. On the other hand, corporate houses have overlooked fundamental doctrine of sustainable development in their business (Mudd, 2009). In the past few years, many pressing global problems such as climate change, poverty, human rights violations and legal compliance issues have entailed corporate to pay attention towards social and environmental impacts of their business. Further, many countries have enacted national legislations, that mandate firms to report their actions towards sustainable development. This in turn, has also created a need for developing a comprehensive framework for sustainable reporting by the firms so that they can be compared in terms of their responsibility on sustainability. Consequently, firms are increasingly called upon to play a positive role, and thus to shape the future of societies globally (Kolk and Van Tulder, 2010). As a result, firms are incorporating policies, procedures, tools and approaches that go beyond regulatory compliance and contribute towards achieving sustainable societies (Henriques and Richardson, 2004). GRI (2006b) has given most influential definition of sustainable reporting, "sustainability reporting is the practice of measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development". A comprehensive sustainability reporting framework developed by GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is widely used across the globe in this regard. The framework enables organizations to measure and report their economic, environmental, social and governance performance. The emergence of such reporting practices has been accompanied by numerous attempts over the years to homogenize such practices. Large companies have discovered that being environmentally conscious and running sustainable operations addresses not only the fiscal bottom line, but also the ''triple bottom line" which include social and environmental happenings in addition to financial success (Esty and Winston, 2009). However, the stakeholders like customers, suppliers, employees, communities and other social groups also expect a higher standard of accountability and demand a more comprehensive depiction of corporate impacts, risks and performance (Rasche and Esser, 2006). However, there were no tools to examine and evaluate the sustainability report based on numerical scoring system in term of TBL (triple bottom line) criteria that work as benchmark, compare their reported performance against their peers and distinguish between better and poorer report. Schmeltz (2014) argues company's value and commitments improved significantly by the credibility and transparent communication. As the sustainability reporting is gaining momentum in Indian firms, the efforts of Government of India's, ministry of corporate affairs to bring more transparency in to the reporting on environment, the current action is the adoption of the business responsibility statement that is being mandatory for all the firms listed at stock exchange in India. Yadava and Sinha (2016), analysed only six apex companies from India using numerical scoring method, a new approach of sustainability assessment. The current study is considerably important as it is analysing sustainability reports using numerical scoring methods for 36 infra firms from India. Therefore, it will be interesting to see through this maiden study on sustainability reporting of Indian infra firms, how these 36 infra firms compare against their peers by applying the scoring method/ assessment tools for the Indian companies as these companies are competing globally and some of them listed in fortune 500 companies. This study is useful for investors, shareholders to compare infra companies in India against their local, national and international peers.

Methodology
Earlier researcher has used objective methods to assess the quality and quantity of sustainability reporting (

Reporting on economic dimension
The three aspect of the economic dimension-economic performance, market presence and indirect economic impact. On the economic performance aspect ABB scores 100% that is 12 out of 12, followed by RIL, welspun and siemen with score of 10. The minimum score for not reporting is 0, which belongs to jaypee infra. Thus the average score on economic performance is 2.94 of all the 36 firms and minimum score 9 and maximum 0. On the market presence the maximum score is that of the gayatri projects (7), whereas the minimum score of zero is that of afcon, IVRCL, JMC projects, sadhbhav engineering, GMR, texmaco and gmmon. The average score of all the 36 firms on the market presence aspect is 2.19. Maximum is 7 and minimum is 0. For the indirect economic impact out of six, gayatri projects, RIL, IRCON, ABB scores total six, whereas, afcon, madhucon, HCC, Jaypee infra scores the minimum 0. The average score of all the 36 firms on indirect economic aspect is 2.58, max is 6, min is 0. Thus the total score for the economic aspect, ehich includes economic performance, market presence and indirect economic aspects is 10.47 with minimum 0 and maximum 21 out of 27 points. Please refer to table 1. Table 4 indicates the performance of all the 36 firms on environmental dimension. The material spect (6), shows the average reporting of 1.5 with maximum score of 6 and minimum 0. The energy aspect (15)

Reporting on social dimension
The social dimension of the GRI reporting consists of labour prake & abort work, 6 as [pects, total score of 45, human right, 9 aspects total score of 30. Product representing with 5 aspect & total score of 45. On the labour practice and decent work total score of 45, the average score of all 36 firms were 15.94 with maximum 43 and minimum 0. On the human right aspects with total score of 33, the average value of all 36 information is 6.08 with maximum 18 and minimum 0. On the total score of 30 for the society aspect, the average value of all the 36 information is 4.97 with maximum 14 and minimum 0. Finally, on the product responsibility of total score 27, the average value of all 36 information is 4.77 with maximum score of 20 and minimum score of 0. Please refer to table 4.

Comparison between Large, Medium, Small and Very Small firm
Security exchange board of India (SEBI), capital market regulator in India has classified companies as large is market capitalization is Rs. 20000 crores and above, Medium -mid size, if market capitalisation is between Rs. 5000 crores to 20000 crores, small size, if the market capitalisation is between Rs. 1000 crores to 5000 crores and very small (micro companies) if the market capitalisation is below Rs. 1000 crores.  Thus, in our sample of 36 infra firms there are 9 large size firms, mainly, ABB, RIL, BHEL, L & T, Vedanta, Siemens, adani ports and afcons. There are 6 medium size firms, mainly, Thermax, godrej properties, welspun India, GMR, HEG, reliance infra. There are 14 small size firms, mainly, ILFS, HCC, Jaiprakash, Texmaco, IRCON, JMC projects, Gayatri projects, IRB, GVK, VATech wabag, Sadhbhav engineering, NCC, Lanco infra, Jaypee infra. There are 7 very small size firms mainly, RPP infra, IVRCL, Skil infra, Gammon, Ramky infra, MEP infra, Madhucaon projects. From the appendix -1 and figure 1 to 8 indicates, the total performance score of the large size firm is better than the medium size, which is better than the small size firm, with exception to small firm ILFS, which is small size firm. On not reporting the very small size firms reporting worst score on GRI indicators than the small size firms. The large size firms do better than all the other category, the level of reporting is better of the large size firms in comparison to the medium and small size firms. On economic dimension the scores of the large size is better than the medium size, medium size does better than very small size firm, small size firms does better than he medium size. On environmental aspect the scores of large size firms do better than all the categories of the firm, with exception to the ILFS, which is small size firms. Very small size firms have the lowest score in all the categories. On the society aspects, all the dimensionssocial, human rights, society, product responsibility, the large size firms do better than all the other three category of firms, while the very small size firms score are the lowest in the category. The exceptional firm is ILFS, small size firms which has done better than all the other firms and across all categories, it ranks high in all the 36 firms on all the dimension with maximum reporting of 57%. Thus the score ranged from 148/252 (58%) to 6/ 252 (2%). The average score of large firm is 52 %, medium firm is 34%, and small firm is 24%, very small 9%. Also, we find considerable difference in reporting of the large size firm, Medium size firm, small size firm and very small size firm.
The result follows view of Patten (1991), Roberts (1992), Hackston and Milne (1996), Garcia and Sanchez (2008), who show that more sensitive companies have more informative reports. Furthermore, Raar (2002) show in their result, of the sample from Australian industries, the sectors which are under law regulators radar dispose more information to all their stakeholders.

Conclusion
Morhardt (2001), argued sustainability reporting is to promote governance, transparency, which is reflected in the scoring of the company, GRI, 2013, applied to the sector which is applied equally by all the Organisation. These guidelines are the most used frameworks and for this that we have chosen this, scoring methodology as the basis of the evaluation.
The objective of this research was to identify at which level the sustainability reports published for the year 2017 by Indian Infra Companies, have incorporated the Principles of the Global Reporting Initiative. The percentages of companies that fulfilled the criteria of the Principles were discussed. After that, the companies were divided into to four groups. The first included the companies that belong in the Large, Medium, Small.Again the highest and the lowest scores were identified for each Principle along with the average scores and comparisons were made.
This evaluation revealed that the sustainability reports have many differences in the way and the degree to which they disclose information, which leads to the conclusion that no principle was fully and efficiently integrated in a report. It can be noted that there are Principles that were often not at all found in reports.

Contribution
Thus, this study contributes to the body of literature on sustainability reporting using scoring methodology on the Global Reporting Initiative and testing it on the Indian reports published for the year 2017 for 36 infrastructure firms listed in Indian stock exchange.

Contribution to existing knowledge
In this research we insisted on the difference inside the large, medium, small group of companies. We find support to the earlier researches that have shown, large companies report more than smaller ones on sustainability reporting (Kolk, 2004