Responsible Business Rankings
India’s Top Companies for
Sustainability and CSR 2021
ESG Performance
Companies undertake many types of responsible business activities. It is difficult to easily comprehend the breadth and scope of their work. Our study uses a measure called the Spread, which is indicative of how broad-based the responsible business activities of a company are and is a combined score of the environmental, societal and governance parameters.

THE HONOURS
- Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. is the top ranked company
- Unlike previous years, no group of companies dominates the top 10 rankings.
- Diversified companies like ITC and Grasim are in the top 10 rankings.
- No Public company figures in the top ten.
Rank | Company |
---|---|
1 | Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. |
2 | Infosys Ltd. |
3 | Wipro Ltd. |
4 | Tata Chemicals Ltd. |
5 | ITC Ltd. |
6 | Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd. |
7 | Grasim Industries Ltd. |
8 | Vedanta Ltd. |
9 | Tata Power Company Ltd. |
10 | JSW Steel Ltd. |
Business responsibility reporting
Responsible business reporting is slowly improving among the leading Indian companies, although the percentage remains low. Companies continue to adopt multiple reporting frameworks to report their responsible business performance. 27% of the companies studied had published an Integrated Report in 2019-20. Many of these had also published a GRI-based Sustainability report in the year.
Business Responsibility Report (BRR) is the mandated form of the responsible business reporting. Indian companies follow the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business that were published in 2011 (NVGs) to prepare BRR. In March 2019, the NVGs were updated and released as the National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBCs). In our study, we find that while almost all continue to prepare BRR as per NVGs, three companies – JSW Steel, TVS Motors and Sundaram Clayton – prepared their BRR as per NGRBCs.
Performance improvement is skewed towards Environment parameter
Companies perform well in Environment parameter, which is in-line with various national and global goals related to environment. This parameter primarily consists of initiatives which are internal to a company’s working hence we find that companies have been quick in implementing various measures.
Social and Governance parameters however have huge scope for improvement. We find that companies are mainly focused on complying with the domestic law instead of proactively analysing what is relevant for their business and redefining their benchmarks in the global economy.
Environment | Social | Governance | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Average Scores (a) | 22.2 | 14.3 | 15.1 | 51.6 |
Median Scores (b) | 23.0 | 15.0 | 14.0 | 51.6 |
Highest Score (c ) | 35.0 | 23.0 | 30.0 | 79.0 |
Lowest Score (d) | 3.0 | 2.0 | 5.0 | 13.0 |
Average Score/Highest Score (a/c) | 63.0% | 62.0% | 50.0% | 65.0% |
Percentage companies that score more than 50% scores | 76% | 35% | 35% | 52% |
Manufacturing and services
Rank | Manufacturing companies | Service companies |
---|---|---|
1 | Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. | Infosys Ltd. |
2 | Tata Chemicals Ltd. | Wipro Ltd. |
3 | ITC Ltd. | Tech Mahindra Ltd. |
4 | Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd. | Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. |
5 | Grasim Industries Ltd. | Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. |
Manufacturing companies, on an average, score far better than service companies - both overall and across criteria.
Average scores | Environment | Social | Governance | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Manufacturing | 25.4 | 15.4 | 16.8 | 57.6 |
Services | 17.3 | 12.6 | 12.6 | 42.5 |
Public and private
Rank | Public companies | Private companies |
---|---|---|
1 | NTPC Ltd. | Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. |
2 | Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. | Infosys Ltd. |
3 | Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. | Wipro Ltd. |
4 | Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Ltd. | Tata Chemicals Ltd. |
5 | GAIL (India) Ltd. | ITC Ltd. |
Private sector companies continue to perform better than public companies. While they perform better on environmental and governance issues, they lag slightly on the social front.
Average scores | Environment | Social | Governance | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Public | 17.3 | 14.6 | 12.6 | 44.5 |
Private | 23.6 | 14.2 | 15.9 | 53.7 |
Industries
Information Technology and Materials are the top performing industries, while Financials and Other Financials continue to be laggards.
Industry | Average Score | Top performing company |
---|---|---|
Information Technology | 68.0 | Infosys Ltd. |
Materials | 59.8 | Tata Chemicals Ltd. |
Diversified | 58.8 | ITC Ltd. |
Utilities | 58.5 | Tata Power Company Ltd. |
Consumer Staples | 55.3 | Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. |
Consumer Discretionary | 54.6 | Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. |
Telecommunication Services | 54.0 | Tata Communications Ltd. |
Capital Goods | 53.4 | Larsen & Toubro Ltd. |
Healthcare | 53.3 | Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd. |
Energy | 53.0 | Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. |
Other Industrials | 47.0 | Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. |
Financials | 40.3 | HDFC Bank Ltd. |
Other Financials | 34.7 | Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd. |
All | 51.6 | Infosys Ltd. |