NEW DELHI: Women represented only 13% of total employees of the 225 companies analysed by ratings agency Crisil based on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) parameters.
But this was higher at 26% for companies in the services space such as IT, internet, healthcare, real estate, financial services and telecom sectors and was much lower at 6% for those in the energy and manufacturing sectors, the analysis showed.
Gender diversity (the proportion of women in total employees) is key for inclusive and balanced decision-making, and a significant ESG consideration.
ESG factors have emerged as crucial for investment decisions across the world.
The agency launched its ESG scores for 225 companies across 18 sectors on Monday.
The analysis also showed that only 21 of the 225 companies evaluated have a minimum of one-third women representation on their boards.
As many as 12 companies, including five large-cap firms, have no women on their boards.
A company’s sustainable, responsible and ethical practices are evaluated similarly to its financial performance and the practice gathering in importance across the globe.
The analysis showed that the average proportion of independent directors on the board across the companies remains modest at 47%.
The presence of these directors is critical for the audit committee (two- thirds should be independent directors) and nomination and remuneration committee, the report said.
As many as 32 of the 225 companies evaluated did not meet the statutory criterion of one-third independent directors, required as per the Companies Act for listed companies.
Many public sector undertakings have low independent director representation, and six have no independent director, the analysis showed.
Currently, nearly 26% of the companies have a common CMD position.
Only 25% of the assessed companies have a split position with an independent chairman.
Almost 39% of the companies evaluated have a non-executive chairman typically representing the promoter shareholders.
Out of the 225 companies analysed, 40 have CEOs with tenure greater than 15 years.
As many as 84 companies have MDs/CEOs with tenure under two years.
Separation of the positions of chairman and MD provides an important oversight mechanism to reduce excessive concentration of authority.
As per Sebi, the positions of chairman and MD need to be separated for the top listed 500 companies by April 2022.
“Our survey shows over 80% of issuers and institutional investors intend to integrate ESG in their decision-making.
Our India-focused framework sieves through the challenges of disclosure quality and standardisation by leveraging our deep sectoral expertise and proprietary databases.
Our ESG research, data, insights, assessments and solutions will empower customers and stakeholders to make decisions with conviction, and contribute to sustainable progress globally.” said Ashu Suyash, MD & CEO.
The analysis also showed that many of the companies evaluated have paid fines and penalties to regulatory authorities such as SEBI, the RBI and the Central Pollution Control.
Board – mostly on account of insider trading, classification of assets,operational control issues, and pollution and waste treatment-related issues – in the last three years.
The report said that about 50 of the leading economies have policies in place to drive sustainable investments.
The EU, Canada, the US, Israel and many others are unveiling regulations specially on sustainable finance disclosures.
Crisil also conducted a survey among 100 respondents – 40 investors, 40 corporates and 20 intermediaries – over May-June 2021 to get a sense of market perception about ESG.
Nearly half the respondents considered ESG data or scores in their investment/lending decisions, while the other half did not.
“We found that those who considered ESG in their decision-making gave higher priority to corporate governance (73%), and almost equal importance to environment (46%) and social (38%) issues,” according to the survey.
Over 50% of the respondents said ESG was critical to their fund-raising and internal decision-making, while 36% said it was somewhat important.
This denotes a marked shift in perception over the years, the assessment noted.
About 60% of the corporate respondents said they systematically used ESG as a risk management tool or to inform corporate strategy.
Most had a separate team for ESG/sustainability.
Around 80% felt ESG was critical for raising capital and other decision-making processes.
Business continuity emerged as the top driving factor.
In terms of the evolution of disclosure requirements, over 66% of the respondents believed demand for ESG disclosures from investors has increased and close to 50% noted that requirements from regulators had increased.
“This is an encouraging sign as pull and push from regulators and investors will see the market evolve and mature in the near future,” the report said.
About 43% also noted that demand for material information from companies has risen significantly.
Consequently, the companies said they require more training on ESG as well as support to report as per global frameworks, the survey showed.
The analysis shows companies with the highest ESG score within a sector outperform the sector average by nearly 9 points because of significantly better performance on three fronts – environmental parameters, overall disclosures, and sustainability practices.
On expected lines, information technology (IT) and financial companies have relatively high overall ESG scores, given their inherently lower natural-resource intensity, resulting in lower emissions, waste generation and water usage.
These companies are also high employment generators and have relatively better disclosures, the report showed.