Indian billionaires may be standing head and shoulders with those in global rich lists, but when it comes to the world's 100 most accountable firms in terms of their commitment to the society and environment, not a single entity from the country has managed to make the cut.
However, there are two companies led by persons of Indian origin — steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal-run ArcelorMittal and Vikram Pandit-led Citigroup — that have been included in the annual global list published by US business magazine Fortune.
The list has been topped by British telecom major Vodafone, which is present in India through a joint venture with Ruias-led Essar group and had an Indian origin person, Arun Sarin, as its CEO till August this year.
Vodafone, which has moved to the top from its fifth position last year, is followed by American diversified conglomerate General Electric, British financial services giant HSBC Holdings (3rd), French telecom firm France Telecom (4th) and UK banking major HBOS in the top five.
British Petroleum, which topped the list in 2007, has slipped to the ninth position in this year's list. Others in the top 10 include Finnish phone maker Nokia (6th), Electricite de France (7th), Suez (8th) and Royal Dutch Shell (10th).
Fortune partnered with AccountAbility, Csrnetwork and Asset4 to rank the companies in the list "by the quality of their commitment to social and environmental goals".
Pandit-led Citi has jumped 15 places to the 17th rank in the accountability ranking, while ArcelorMittal is now placed at the 73rd position, making significant improvement from last year's 96th rank.
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The 100 most accountable companies are selected from among those included in the Fortune Global 500 list, which ranks the companies on the basis of annual turnover.
There were seven Indian companies in this year's Fortune Global 500 list, published in July, and included Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Reliance Industries (RIL), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), Tata Steel, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and State Bank of India (SBI).
While none of Indian companies have made to the latest accountability rankings, in various rich lists prepared by publications like Forbes, Indian business leaders have continuously grabbed many top positions.
In this year's list of world's richest persons published by Forbes in March, there were four Indians — Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and KP Singh in the top 10.
The US has the biggest presence with 31 companies on the list, while there are nine British firms. India is the only Bric nation with no presence on the list, while there are three Chinese firms, two from Russia and one from Brazil.
Among other countries, 13 are from Germany, 10 from France and eight from Japan.
The accountability rating is mainly based on four parameters — strategic intent, governance and management systems, engagement and operational performance.
While strategic intent focusses on whether the business strategy is designed with a consideration of relevant social and environmental trends and impacts, the governance and management systems examines whether senior executives and the advisory board consider stakeholders' issues when making strategy and formulating corporate policy.
Further, engagement analyses whether the company engaged in dialogue with people who have an interest, on account of being affected by, or can affect its business, and operational performance is based on whether the company is managing its most important social and environmental impacts.
On Vodafone, the report said that it "reclaimed the top spot in 2008 (it ranked No 5 last year and No 1 in 2006) by upping its green game. Vodafone in April said it would chop half of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020..."
Noting that the company also gets good grades for reporting the details of the campaign — and whether or not it's going well — on a continuous basis, the magazine said such transparency apparently is part of the Vodafone culture.
"The firm reports its progress on past commitments, and also discloses deadlines for future promises, such as its pledge to recycle 95 per cent of network equipment waste (March 2009) and plans to reduce work-related accidents that cause lost time by 10 per cent (March 2011)," it added.