Business responsibility reporting will soon become mandatory for India’s top 500 companies, according to U K Sinha Chairman, SEBI.

Announcing this at FICCI’s capital market conference, Sinha said that this decision to increase the number of companies submitting business responsibility reports from 100 to 500 would be announced soon.

In August 2012, SEBI had made business responsibility reporting mandatory for the top 100 listed companies by market capitalisation on the NSE and the BSE. It has inserted a new clause (Clause 55) in the equity listing agreement for the purpose.

A business responsibility report will disclose steps taken by listed companies from an environmental, social and governance perspective.

SEBI has outlined nine underlying principles to assess compliance with these norms. According to these, businesses should conduct and govern themselves with ethics, transparency and accountability; should provide safe and sustainable goods and services and promote employee wellbeing; should respect and promote human rights, protect and restore the environment; should be responsible while influencing public and regulatory policy and support inclusive growth and equitable development; and finally, they should provide value to their customers and consumers.

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