Country statistics India ¦ The Indian reports look to promise much but then lack in the delivery of these promises. Similar to many of the other countries surveyed, some of the companies in the sample group from India have a US listing. The financially focused and ‘rules’ based reporting regime in the US is approached by most companies with compliance firmly in mind rather than communication. Surprisingly however, inspirational themes on the front cover prevail on most Indian reports: ‘powering progress… brightening lives’, ‘fuelling India’s journey to the top’, ‘touching every Indian home’, ‘building tomorrow’s enterprise – transforming people’s lives’ ‘together good things happen’. Although many of the reports start off well, this usually peters out after the first few pages with little attempt to integrate the theme for the report throughout. Consequently the reader is often left with a sense of disappointment having not been told the whole story about the company and, instead, left to ‘fill in the blanks’ around the complex financials. A few reports stand out because of their strategic content and the thought they have given to accessibility and readability, for example: WIPRO, ITC and Tata Steel. However, despite the strength of these companies, and the claims by a few about being a good corporate citizen, integrated reporting in India seems to be in the early stages of development. Key statistics 58% make a commitment to stakeholders in their overall vision 42% make no commitment to specific stakeholder groups Only 22% link non-financial issues to overall group strategy 33% present non-financial performance data 17% provide information on risk factors and no companies present information on the potential impact of non-financial risks 25% have a board level sustainability committee 0% have a specific mention of nonfinancial issues in their overall strategy, but 33% make some mention of these issues Key highlights • Reporting of financial performance is primary focus of reports. • Prevalence of pages of lists of awards in the front of the report – often with full colour logos and graphics of the awards, and often the only colour or graphic in the report. • Board of directors and senior management teams feature early and prominently in the reports. • Design, presentation and layout of information to provide effective communication seems to be of little relevance to companies. Average report length Average length of narrative Average length of financials Number of ‘integrated’ reports 206 pages 105 pages 101 pages 0 out of 12 reports 14 Towards Global Sustainability A country by country review of the international integrated reporting landscape