SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF ESG (ENVIRONMENTAL, SUSTAINABILITY AND GOVERNANCE) IN INDI

This century has seen the emergence of a worldwide realization of the interlinked issues of environment, inequality, and business malpractice. In this regard, ESG frameworks have become essential tools for businesses and governments to address their economic growth and development while at the same time ensuring sustainability and good governance practices. India, as the country with the highest population and fifth largest economy in the world, holds an important place in terms of ESG discussions. From being predominantly an agrarian economy under colonial exploitation to an emerging industrial giant, India's transition offers both challenges and opportunities when implementing ESG principles. Indian environmental governance can be traced through various stages of history that have left their marks on today's processes. Firstly, during the colonial period (1757-1947), environment policies were based on exploitation and extraction, focusing mainly on depleting natural resources rather than maintaining the environment and sustaining its health. For instance, the Indian Forest Act of 1865 and other modifications of this law were designed exclusively for British interests, thereby depriving Indian communities of their land rights and creating a legacy of environmental injustice (Gadgil & Guha, 1995). Next, after independence, in the postcolonial stage (1947-1970s), the nation-building era did not pay much attention to environmental issues, but more on building industries, food supply, and dams. Therefore, the foundation of many ecological problems can be traced back to these years. Finally, the Stockholm conference in 1972 was a pivotal event for India as it resulted in legislation such as the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974, and Forest Conservation Act of 1980. However, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984 was another event that marked the need for legislative changes due to disastrous outcomes resulting from lack of proper governance and environmental considerations. The tragedy took thousands of lives and still affects people to this day. This incident led to the creation of the Environment Protection Act of 1986, which has been crucial for further development of Indian ESG practices (Sriramachari, 2005). The liberalization of the economy in 1991 marked a point of no return concerning India's ESG trajectory. By opening up markets to FDI inflows and privatization, India began to experience conflicts between its quest for swift growth and sustainability issues. This led to the degradation of the environment due to air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gases, among others, during the 1990s and early 2000s. However, this era also witnessed the adoption of CSR principles by Indian companies; these were often philanthropic and voluntary and reflected a new level of awareness by corporations of their stakeholders' needs beyond profitability (Balasubramanian et al., 2005).