Accounting for waste management: a study of the reporting practices of the top listed Indian companies

This study examines the extent to which India's leading 30 companies disclose information about the solid and liquid wastes they produce. Guided by a 35-item waste disclosure index, companies' 2012-2018 annual reports, sustainability reports and business responsibility reports were content analysed. Although a significant increase in reporting occurred, especially following the Indian government's national waste management campaign in 2014, this increase proceeds from a very low starting point. Over 85 percent of the companies provide limited disclosures. The study's waste disclosure index should prove valuable to researchers and policymakers wishing to measure firms' waste disclosures at and across points in time.