BSE and Sustainability
Sustainability in a general sense can be seen as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Environmentalists have long warned that our current patterns of economic growth and resource consumption, so severely threaten the earth's carrying capacity that ecological collapse is likely, if not inevitable.

BSE being a responsible stock exchange is taking various initiatives in the domain of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. BSE has launched theme based indices like S&P BSE Carbonex and S&P BSE Greenex. BSE is also participating in the sustainable stock exchanges initiative. BSE has signed Memorandum of Understanding with Ministry of Corporate Affairs to launch corporate social responsibility index.


  • Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE)
    The United Nations had been playing a catalyzing role through a series of Global Dialogues - held in New York (2009), Xiamen (2010) and Rio de Janeiro (2012) - the initiative had become a platform for exploring how exchanges can work with investors, regulators and companies to enhance corporate sustainability and promote responsible investment.

    The Exchange's pro-active work had been noticed by UNCTAD. UNCTAD has approached BSE to get on board of SSE by signing the commitment letter to promote long term sustainable investment and improved environmental, social and corporate governance disclosure

    BSE is the first stock exchange from Asia to join Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative.

    "We are hopeful that this initiative would help us in further introducing a culture of sustainable business practices amongst BSE's listed companies" BSE's MD & CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan.
  • BSE - Corporate Social Responsibility Index.
    BSE and Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA - Established by Ministry of Corporate Affairs), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on September 23, 2013 to work collaboratively in the domains of business sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), investor education and other allied areas.

    BSE - IICA are going to launch Corporate Social Responsibility Index. An Advisory Committee (AC) consisting officials from IICA and BSE is formed to guide the CSR Index construction, design and roll-out processes. This Advisory Committee will be having a consultative approach and shall interact with various stakeholders.

    "CSR and sustainability are two extremely important topics for 2013, especially with the passing of The Companies Act 2013. They also represent the aspirations of youth as well as society. This conclave being very timely and the discussions being detailed, I'm sure the participants will be able to gather a lot of executable knowledge about how to go about in setting up the CSR framework in their organizations when they go back." said Mr. Ashish K. Chauhan, MD & CEO, BSE Ltd. on the occasion of "CSR & Sustainability Conclave 2013" organized by Dun & Bradstreet.

    http://www.dnb.co.in/News_Press.asp?mid=323
    CSR Resources

    Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in BSE is aligned with its tradition of creating wealth in the community with a three pronged focus on Education, Health and the Environment. Besides funding charitable causes for the elderly and the physically challenged, BSE has been supporting the rehabilitation and restoration efforts in earthquake-hit communities of Gujarat. BSE has been awarded the Golden Peacock Global - CSR Award for its initiatives in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the World Council of Corporate Governance.
  • BSE - Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) initiative
    BSE signed Memorandum of Understanding with CDP India to jointly carry out activities for creating awareness about filing sustainability data / Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) data with CDP.

    CDP is a nonprofit organization which works with other CDP entities worldwide to provide a transformative global system for thousands of companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share environmental information. CDP India is actively in touch with Top 200 (BSE-200 constituents) companies to encourage them to report non financial data. The data received from CDP will be used for the calculations of S&P BSE Carbonex.

    https://www.cdp.net/EN-US/WHATWEDO/Pages/India.aspx

    "BSE with more than 5,200 listed companies is one of the largest Exchanges in the World and the first Exchange from Asia to join United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative. BSE's objective is for Indian Companies to look beyond shareholder value and make sustainability a core driver of their strategy. S&P BSE Carbonex Index, using CDP data, calculated by Asia index Private Limited is a key step in this direction. S&P BSE CARBONEX uses risk-tilted version of established S&P BSE-100 index. Weights of the constituents are adjusted to reflect their climate risk relative to industry peers. In addition, the BSE has also entered into an MOU with Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs established by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India for creating benchmarks indices in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility." Ashish Kumar Chauhan MD & CEO BSE Ltd

    CDP India 200 climate change report2013 Report - "Energy efficiency driving the climate change response in Indian high performing companies" https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/CDP-India-200-Climate-Change-Report-2013.pdf




  • S&P BSE CARBONEX
    The S&P BSE CARBONEX aims to provide the investors with an index that is indicative of companies' commitment to mitigating the effects of climate change and moving forward to tackle the environmental challenges of the coming years.

    It uses comprehensive data acquired from independent providers of sustainibility data and companies' public disclosures and tracks the underlying benchmark index 'S&P BSE 100 Index' closely.

    AIPL (Asia Index Private Limited, JV of BSE and SPDJI) is the index calculating partner with BSE for S&P BSE CARBONEX. RobecoSAM shall be the knowledge partner and CDP India would continue to be data provider for the Index.

    https://www.bseindia.com/indices/indiceswatch.aspx?index_Code=77&iname=CARBON
  • S&P BSE GREENEX
    BSE launched the S&P BSE GREENEX index in February 2012 by Dr. (Shri) M. VeerappaMoily, Hon'ble Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and erstwhile Minister of Corporate Affairs. This index uses S&P BSE 100 universe and is a veritable first step in creating a credible market based response mechanism in India, whereby both businesses and investors can rely upon purely quantitative and objective performance based signals, to assess "carbon performance". This is a leader's index that comprises of twenty five companies that are good in terms of the Green House Gases (GHG) emissions including offsetting, Market Capitalization and the Liquidity in the market.

    https://www.bseindia.com/indices/indiceswatch.aspx?index_Code=75&iname=GREENX
  • BSE - SEBI Clause 55 Business Responsibility Reporting (BRR)
    SEBI had, in August 2012, issued a circular on Business Responsibility Reporting, which follows from the National Voluntary Guidelines (NVG) on Social, Environmental and Economical Responsibilities of Business being brought out by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in July 2011, both of which speak of the pressing responsibilities that businesses have to shoulder today in order to make way for a sustainable future and a safer environment for our businesses, our society, and our planet.

    SEBI mandated inclusion of Business Responsibility Reports ("BR reports") as part of the Annual Reports for listed entities. Therefore, in line with the objective to enhance the quality of disclosures made by listed entities, certain listing conditions are specified by way of inserting Clause 55 in the equity Listing Agreement.

    BSE is working closely with SEBI to monitor the BRR compliance details filed by companies.

    Click here to view Clause 55 related circulars issued by SEBI for your ready reference

  • Companies Act 2013 - Section 135 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - Section 135
    • Every company having net worth of rupees five hundred crore or more, or turnover of rupees one thousand crore or more or a net profit of rupees five crore or more during any financial year shall constitute a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the Board consisting of three or more directors, out of which at least one director shall be an independent director.
    • The Board's report under sub-section (3) of section 134 shall disclose the composition of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.
    • The Corporate Social Responsibility Committee shall,
      • formulate and recommend to the Board, a Corporate Social Responsibility Policy which shall indicate the activities to be undertaken by the company as specified in Schedule VII;
      • recommend the amount of expenditure to be incurred on the activities referred to in clause (a); and
      • monitor the Corporate Social Responsibility Policy of the company from time to time.
    • The Board of every company referred to in sub-section (1) shall,
      • after taking into account the recommendations made by the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, approve the Corporate Social Responsibility Policy for the company and disclose contents of such Policy in its report and also place it on the company's website, if any, in such manner as may be prescribed; and
      • ensure that the activities as are included in Corporate Social Responsibility Policy of the company are undertaken by the company.
    • The Board of every company referred to in sub-section (1), shall ensure that the company spends, in every financial year, at least two per cent of the average net profits of the company made during the three immediately preceding financial years, in pursuance of its Corporate Social Responsibility Policy:

      Provided that the company shall give preference to the local area and areas around it where it operates, for spending the amount earmarked for Corporate Social Responsibility activities: Provided further that if the company fails to spend such amount, the Board shall, in its report made under clause (o) of sub-section (3) of section 134, specify the reasons for not spending the amount.

      Explanation: For the purposes of this section average net profit shall be calculated in accordance with the provisions of section 198.

  • National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental & Economic Responsibilities of Business Released
    The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India, released the National Voluntary Guidelines on CSR (December 2009), which was formulated by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) set up in 2008 for this purpose. These guidelines emphasize the role of business sector in helping India achieve the goal of sustainable development and economic growth. The Guidelines provide a framework for responsible business action which can be used by all type of businesses. Extensive consultative approach has been adopted by the Guidelines Drafting Committee (GDC) for developing these guidelines. Significant inputs of various stakeholders groups (comprising leading industrial and trade chambers, experienced professionals, and other experts) have been duly considered for drafting these guidelines. It also provides a section on reporting, to enable businesses to demonstrate adoption of these guidelines to stakeholders through reliable disclosures.

    http://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/latestnews/National_Voluntary_Guidelines_2011_12jul2011.pdf