Workshop: “Business Integrity, Responsibility and Reporting”

The Alliance for Integrity and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA)* jointly hosted a session on the topic “Business Integrity, Responsibility and Reporting” on November 20, 2015 at the three-day International Dialogues and Conference on India and Sustainability Standards organized by the Centre For Responsible Business (CRB) in New Delhi, India.

The workshop was structured around the topic of business integrity and ethics, a business imperative particularly in present times. Discussions also delved into the importance of mainstreaming disclosure and reporting for businesses as an effective means to drive change in business behaviour and embed responsible conduct and practice across all business functions.

The ensuing discussion was vibrant, including perspectives from the civil society, industry (private and public sector), academia and MSMEs. The eminent panel included Yogesh Goel, Global Compliance Officer and Company Secretary at SAP India; Mukesh Gulati, Executive Director of the Foundation for MSME Clusters (FMC); Malcom McIntosh, Professor and Director of the Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University; Dinesh Agarwal, General Manager, NTPC and Shireen Kurian, Consultant, Corporate Watch at Praxis India. Chetna Kaura, Chief Programme Executive, IICA moderated the Workshop.

The National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Economic and Environmental Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) and the Business Responsibility framework that have been formulated by IICA in partnership with GIZ formed the basis for the discussion**. The NVGs are a national framework consisting of nine principles that encompass all aspects of Business Responsibility (BR). While emphasizing the need to mainstream the adoption of BR, the panellists converged on the point that business operations impact the entire society, and hence a proactive multi-stakeholder approach is a promising way forward in pushing the agenda forward.

The speakers lauded the Alliance for Integrity for furthering this very agenda that seeks to promote collective action for ethical and clean business. The panellists also expressed that future efforts in the field of BR and integrity should be built on the right blend of voluntary and mandatory initiatives. This, they felt would help bring about a behavioural change and also create the necessary pressure to nudge businesses in the right direction.

Some of other remarks included Ms. Kurian’s emphasis on the vital role that civil society should play by demanding transparency and accountability from businesses. Mr. Goel and Mr. Agarwal explained that there has been progress among large companies with respect to reporting and compliance systems, while Mr. Gulati threw light upon the MSMEs that are still lagging far behind and need specially designed interventions to address the issue amongst them. Mr. McIntosh argued that compliance efforts will inevitably fail if they are not adequately incorporated into the business model of companies and the economic system as a whole. A need to focus on specific topics such as supply chain responsible behaviour, link between business success and compliance, professionalization of compliance management systems was also discussed.

* IICA is the nodal agency for corporate functioning in India and works under the aegis of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, GoI
** The NVGs were released in July 2011 by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India. A corresponding reporting format “Business Responsibility Reporting (BRR)” was also developed the following year. The framework has since been mandated by the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for the top 100 listed companies, other listed companies are also encouraged to adopt the BRR for the purpose of reviewing, improving and communicating their responsible business practices.