ESG (Environmental Social Governance) would assume a key role in ramping up growth, said Dinesh Khara, chairman at State Bank of India.
“India is taking its rightful place on the world stage and as a global leader, we have to lead not only on growth indicators but also sustainability indicators,” said the chairman speaking at ESG India Leadership Awards presented by esgrisk.ai.
21 corporates from varied industries were awarded for best practices in the environment, social and governance parameters. With issues like forest fires, climate changes, diversity, water efficiency and governance becoming mainstream, discussions on conscious lending and investing have not just become a reality bit a priority.
Of late large Indian conglomerates have been focussing on ESG fundraising that comes cheap but with an onus to deploy money on dedicated pockets.
“We completed our analysis of 500 listed companies and dissected the data threadbare, it dawned upon us that there are great achievements that are worth talking about,” said Sankara Chakraborti, Chairman esgrisk.ai. While Infosys emerged as a ESG leader across industries, Axis Bank lead the pack in transparency and disclosures, esgrisk.ai said in a note. Lenders particularly banks are not just looking at ESG compliance as corporates, but ESG principles are forming core to their lending decisions too.
“There are several mutual funds, ESG focussed funds that have listed and have been launched in the Indian markets,” said Sanjeev Kaushik, Additional Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, GOI.
