Governing Circularity: A Taxonomy-based Framework for Corporate Disclosure and Measurement Maturity in Emerging Markets

Corporate circular economy (CE) disclosure in emerging markets tends to be broad in narrative yet thin in measurement, which weakens comparability and board-level accountability. This study asks how a taxonomy-based framework can classify CE disclosures and grade their measurement maturity, and what that reveals about governance-driven reporting quality. The sustainability, integrated, annual and Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports of fifteen large Indian firms were analysed. The firms were drawn from the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s top-1,000 listed companies and screened to a ‘Strong’ CRISIL Environmental, Social and Governance rating for 2023–24. Using a three-phase quantitative content analysis coded in Python against an ISO 59004:2024-aligned scheme, each report was scored on nine disclosure dimensions: governance, design, inputs, operations, outputs, business models, supply chains, measurement and social transition; and on a five-level measurement-maturity layer. Diffusion of innovation and adaptive governance theories frame the reading of the results. Disclosure breadth and measurement maturity behave as distinct dimensions: firms sort into Leaders, Broad-only, Measured-only and Laggards, and the gap between Leaders and Laggards turns on governance-linked measurement rather than sector or size. Waste reporting dominates, while upstream design and repairability remain largely absent. The taxonomy gives boards a diagnostic for CE governance maturity and offers regulators a tiered, phased basis for standardising disclosure, helping investors judge how far reported circularity is actually measured.