'It’s not just numbers': India Inc. leaders say boards now own the ESG agenda

At the first edition of BT India’s Most Sustainable Companies Summit & Awards in Delhi, industry leaders laid out how sustainability has evolved from a compliance issue to a core business strategy—and why investors, boards, and even supply chains are now holding companies to account.

“Sustainability is now part of our business strategy,” said Prabodha Acharya, Chief Sustainability Officer at JSW Group. Recalling his early days in the steel industry, Acharya highlighted how JSW turned waste into value by repurposing slag from steel plants to create JSW Cement. “JSW Cement not only created value out of waste but also has the lowest carbon footprint in the cement sector globally,” he said. He added that the company’s grassroots SEED (Sustainable Energy, Environment and Decarbonization) program is driving operational change across the organization.

Abanti Sankaranarayanan, EVP – Group Public Affairs at Mahindra & Mahindra, emphasized how purpose is embedded in Mahindra’s DNA. “We’ve always said purpose drives profits,” she said, adding that today, investors are digging deeper. “Even before British International Investment bought a 3–4% stake in Mahindra Electric, they conducted detailed ESG due diligence and formalized an Environment and Social Action Plan (ESAP) as part of the shareholders’ agreement.”

From the engineering side, Dr. Anantharaman Subramaniyan, Head of Strategy, Sustainability, CSR & Skilling at Siemens Ltd., stressed the challenge of decarbonizing supply chains. “Emissions in the upstream supply chain can be 25 to 100 times our own,” he said. Siemens leads by example: “We taste the champagne first and then serve it to our supply chain partners,” he quipped, referring to the company’s internal adoption of sustainability tech before pushing it to suppliers.

Seema Arora, Deputy Director General of CII, reflected on the evolution of corporate India’s approach to sustainability since the 1992 Rio Summit. “What started as compliance has now become a strategic growth driver,” she said. But she warned of two major blind spots: the neglected ‘S’ in ESG—social issues like labor rights and heat stress—and the undervaluation of nature. “Nearly half of global GDP depends on nature. Boards must account for the true cost of clean air and water.”

Ashish Parikh, COO of Diageo India, affirmed board-level accountability. “Our ESG strategy is reviewed quarterly by an independent board committee,” he said. Diageo follows a “triple win” model—“best for consumers, best for communities, best for the company”—anchoring sustainability in business logic.