B Corps in India: A Sustainable Business Model

Abstract

Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. After countries recognized the profound significance of assessing social and environmental performance as a prerequisite for sustainable business existence, various nongovernmental organizations as well as regulatory bodies developed measurement scales to gauge this performance. In this paper, we refer to one such assessment tool, B Impact Assessment (BIA), proposed by B Corps to benchmark the reporting framework of Indian companies for their social and environmental performance. The listed Indian companies were required to publish business responsibility reporting (BRR) which lacks generalization with other international standards.

In this study, we consider BRR and propose a revised Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) framework to make it comparable and compatible with BIA, which is acceptable worldwide. Also, we introduce measurement scores of the BRR at a granular level—taking 109 items of the existing scale and 13 items identified after benchmarking with BIA, together aggregating to maximum score of 200. In addition, to support the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) to analyze the completeness, accuracy, and clarity of BRR, we apply scoring mechanism to develop sections A and B of the BRSR. The universal applicability of scale and benchmarking with internationally acceptable BIA will encourage more Indian companies to adopt social responsibilities and will make the assurance of annual report simple. Moreover, the proposed scale can also be used to identify companies that are eligible for the proposed Social Security Exchange in India. We expect that the findings will contribute to the literature on social responsibility and corporate sustainability and in practice accelerate the “CSR movement” in India.