New Delhi, April 7 -- Every year, some of India's largest industrial companies publish sustainability reports that are full of details on the number of trees planted, villages electrified and water bodies restored. And every year, the factories that made those reports possible continue to burn coal, run furnaces and emit carbon at rates that have barely changed in a decade.

Both things are true. Neither cancels the other out. That is the uncomfortable part.

India's corporate sector has spent the decade since the enactment of the Companies Act of 2013 perfecting a particular kind of environmental sincerity. The law required large companies to spend 2% of their profits on initiatives for social good.

The intention was sound. But for heav...