New Delhi [India], March 7 (ANI/Mediawire): The curtain raiser for the KPMG ESG Conclave and Awards 2023 brought together some of the best minds in the industry to discuss the way forward for India Inc. on ESG KPMG India CEO's View Disclosure would be key for companies - On the need to address SEBI regulations One needs to embrace this with a long-term horizon and start making disclosures in its true spirit, rather than just in form. It is an evolutionary journey, and companies should assess where they stand now and where they want to get to, in the medium to long-term and develop a clear roadmap. Considering these are public disclosures, there needs to be focus on rigour and quality of reporting. - On regulators should be cautious about disclosures One will have to be proactive to enhance the quality and consistency of disclosures to mitigate the concerns around greenwashing. Mandating assurance is a good step in this direction. For the industry, one will have to anticipate and be proactive, without making any distinction between listed and unlisted companies, from a governance perspective. - Impact on companies across sectors It impacts all of us. Even KPMG, being in the service industry, has a plan to be net zero by 2030. At the high end of manufacturing, the steel industry is impacted, and they are talking about transitioning to green steel. For services and consumer companies, they probably need to deliver more on the social footprint, as they look at consumers, employees and so on. On another scale, it impacts companies that are going to borrow as well, so even access to capital will get impacted. - Regulations being an India opportunity India is known to take leadership in its chosen areas. We have done it in the IT sector, also in the service and telecom sector, where we were possibly late entrants but before we knew it, we are at the top end of the spectrum. It is likely to be the same in ESG as well. On ESG regulations, we have been far more evolved and holistic in the approach than many others. - On changing landscape for India Inc It is early days, and the policy is still evolving. India has set a deadline of 2070 for itself to become net zero, but corporations are setting earlier timelines -- a lot will depend upon how the policy unfolds to enable the transition. India has clearly set its agenda for a sustainable future through its commitment to achieve SDG goals by 2030 and Net Zero by 2070, the resolve is clearly visible through the recent green budget. As the leader of G20, India can show the way for a sustainable growth for the world. In this context - towards enabling greater dialogue and action, KPMG in India hosted a curtain raiser leading towards its flagship event - KPMG ESG Conclave and Awards 2023. While India is synced and aligned to the fact that all stakeholders not only focus on profit motive but also how responsibly that profit is earned with equal weightage on environment, social, and governance. We have just begun to scratch the surface and a lot remains to be done for achieving ESG goals. One big step towards achieving that is the newly introduced Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting framework by SEBI, which makes it mandatory for India's top 1,000 listed companies to report their non-financial numbers. The expectation is that the introduction of non-financial reporting will be expanded in scope, and, over the next few years, more listed and non-listed Indian companies will have to follow the reporting standards. The industry expects that over the years, financial and non-financial reporting could be about 50:50 for companies. But that also raises several questions as to how companies can be ready for this eventuality and how they can stay ahead of the emerging regulation. SEAN KIDNEY Co-Founder and CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative highlighted that "Some of the big wins in the past few years have been the dropping of renewable energy costs, increasing green finance - about USD 3.5 trillion of green social sustainable bonds and the opportunity narrative and the transition flowing out of these three wins." One of the key discussion points at the roundtable was the role that India Inc can play in achieving their ESG goals. Many established companies have set their own aggressive Net Zero targets. A large, diversified conglomerate, for example, has set 2035 as their Net Zero target, another large steel company has set 2045 - most of these are Scope I and Scope II emissions. Scope I is emission within your premises and Scope II is within the company's supply chains. Experts argued that the biggest challenge lay in Scope III which is outside the premises of the supply chains involving MSMEs and the agriculture sector. The downstream aspect in relation to Scope III is very important in your product design not just in its ability to reduce the carbon impact directly but how much of it is easily repairable and replaceable so that they have long-term lives, pointed out NAWSHIR MIRZA Independent Director But corporates alone can't pull off the ESG targets - it has to boil down to individuals, echoed the panel while also pointing out that more coordination was required between SEBI and the ministry of finance to give sustainable finance a greater push. The focus needs to shift to people rather than technology alone, employees and local communities need to be seen as key stakeholders, the group believed. In terms of the regulator, the need to bring about a massive change in the mindset and bring in mandates was also pointed out by the experts. Tax, a critical part of any financial decision, needed to be brought under the purview of BRSR, the leaders believed. Tax reports will add shareholder value across the board, they said. During the roundtable discussion J B MOHAPATRA Former Chairman, CBDT said," With tax transparency reporting coming in within the ESG framework, we will have a better and a stronger view of how the tax behaviour of a company whether it is transparently done, whether the approach is right, whether the tax litigation strategy is right and who is taking the call on the final tax strategy, will become very clear." "Few companies have voluntarily embraced Tax Transparency Reporting. This is an opportunity for them to publish in the public domain their tax policy, their tax governance framework, and how they engage with a regulator when they do not agree with certain taxes. This is also an opportunity for corporates to layout the tax contributions they make to the government and effectively to the society", added MANOJ PARDASANI Chartered Accountant. The good part, however, is that all the stakeholders are coming together to address the ESG challenges. While it came first from the investors with the regulators playing along later, others in terms of consumers, employees, etc. are also now playing their parts. The generational shift, the panel believed, was also shaping the future in terms of including what businesses can sell and upsell. The reality is that global emissions need to be cut by 55 per cent to stop runaway climate change - about 7-8 degrees - because it's not clear if humans can survive in that environment. As per analysis, in the last 25 years, it has dropped by 5 per cent and in the next seven years it must come down by 50 per cent. That's a big challenge and the minimum existential requirement. TANYA SINGHAL Founder, Mynzo Carbon expressed, "We can't think of ESG as CSR. You can put CSR for $100-200 but you can't put USD 10 trillion for CSR. That is the code that needs to change. Today, proving renewables being subgrid and saving money is a core value of why it will grow and that's where you need policy intervention, budget support, and economic analysis." The group of leaders concluded that ESG couldn't be looked at like CSR and needs much deeper thought and involvement from all stakeholders of the society. "This award is a great opportunity whereby we can encourage companies, regulators, and governments to see that this is not just technology and capital flow through investors which are im