'India leads in corporate responsibility reporting globally'

New Delhi: India along with three other nations lead the way globally in terms of reporting on corporate responsibility activities, with companies making more disclosures especially due to mandatory regulatory requirements, says a survey.

The KPMG survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2015 released today said India leads corporate responsibility (CR) reporting rates in the world.

The Asia Pacific region has overtaken others on CR reporting rates, with India amongst the top 10 countries.

"More companies (79 percent) now report on CR in Asia Pacific than in any other region, followed by the Americas (77 percent) and Europe (74 percent)," it said.

As per the report, the overall rate worldwide is increasing, with around 73 percent of the companies now reporting on CR.

"Four emerging economies have the highest CR reporting rates in the world: India, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa," it said.

Apart from India, other countries that have seen significant increase in CR reporting compared to 2013 are Norway (17 percent), South Korea (25 percent) and Taiwan (21 percent).

Noting that the top 100 companies in India have disclosures on CR as part of their annual reports, the report also said the overall increase has been mainly driven by the introduction of mandatory reporting requirements by governments or stock exchanges.

"All countries with a CR reporting rate of 90 percent or above have mandatory reporting requirements: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, UK, France, Japan, Denmark and Norway," it noted.

The findings are based on an analysis of reporting from 4,500 companies spread across 45 countries.

Ahead of the global climate change talks starting later this month, the report also focuses on the quality of carbon reporting among the world's 250 largest companies (G250).

Santhosh Jayaram, Director (Climate Change and Sustainability) at KPMG India said all of the largest Indian firms report on CR, compared with just 20 percent of companies in 2011.

"Last year, the government of India made it mandatory for large companies to report on CSR projects undertaken and to disclose details, including the spending on these projects, in their annual report.

"This, combined with Business Responsibility Reporting (BRR) requirement for top 100 listed entities from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has pushed the rate of CR reporting in India to the highest in the world," he noted.