The present paper is an exploratory study to understand the nature and extent of environmental reporting practices followed by Indian Companies. To examine the disclosure practices regarding the environmental issues, the published annual reports of environmentally sensitive companies in India were collected for the year 2017-2018. Content analysis was applied to analyze the annual reports. An ‘Environmental Disclosure Index’ listing 25 items of information, classified in to five categories was used to find out the actual disclosure practices in these companies. A sample of fifty manufacturing companies belongs to environmentally sensitive industries like Cement Manufacturing, Paper manufacturing, Petroleum oil and refineries, Pharmaceutical and steel manufacturing industries have been selected for this study. Percentage analysis has been applied to evaluate the environmental reporting practices of companies. The study found that, Indian companies have voluntarily reported many items of information contained in the checklist. The present study provided a general understanding and status of environmental disclosure across diverse sectors. Recent years have witnessed rising concern for environmental issues, which is reflecting in the form of social or sustainability reporting in the annual reports of Indian companies. The Number of organizations that publish environmental reporting is steadily increasing and it has significant effect in decision making process by stakeholders.

KEY WORDS: Content analysis, Environmental Disclosure Index, Environmental issues. Environmental reporting,   Environmentally sensitive Industries.