Adani Ports learns to play the ESG game

The port operator’s efforts to improve its ESG scores are finally paying off, but do the improved ratings really tell the whole story?

On 11 February, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone put out a press release to showcase its improved environmental, social and governance practices. Non-profit CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), which runs one of the biggest voluntary disclosure systems on environmental impacts, had given India’s largest private port operator an “A–” rating in its annual assessment for 2023—up from a “C” in 2020 . 

The same month, S&P Global’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment handed it a 96% rating (up from 57% in 2022), while Morningstar-owned ratings firm Sustainalytics, in its January update, gave APSEZ a “low-risk” ESG rating, and assigned …