Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR)
The Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) is a mandatory ESG disclosure framework introduced by SEBI under the LODR Regulations, requiring the top 1,000 NSE- and BSE-listed companies by market capitalisation to report quantitative and qualitative sustainability metrics aligned with the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC).
The BRSR replaced the earlier Business Responsibility Report (BRR), which had been mandatory since 2012 for the top 100 listed companies. The SEBI circular issued in May 2021 introduced the BRSR with a significantly expanded disclosure scope and made it mandatory for the top 1,000 listed entities from FY 2022–23. SEBI further mandated a BRSR Core — a subset of key performance indicators (KPIs) with assurance requirements — starting FY 2023–24 for the top 150 companies by market capitalisation, expanding to larger universes in subsequent years.
The BRSR is structured around nine principles drawn from the NGRBC published by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in 2019. These principles cover: ethical business conduct, sustainable goods and services, employee wellbeing, stakeholder responsiveness, human rights, environmental stewardship, responsible policy advocacy, inclusive growth, and consumer responsibility. Each principle requires disclosures in both a leadership section (qualitative governance statements) and a performance section (quantitative metrics).
Key BRSR disclosures include absolute and intensity-based Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions, water withdrawal volume categorised by source (surface water, groundwater, third-party), energy consumption in GJ with a breakdown between renewable and non-renewable sources, hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated and disposed, workforce data including gender diversity ratios, contract worker health and safety statistics, and community development spending as a percentage of PAT (related to CSR under Section 135 of the Companies Act).
The assurance requirement for the BRSR Core KPIs introduced a new discipline for Indian CFOs and sustainability teams. Third-party assurance — by audit firms, sustainability consultants, or technical experts — lends credibility to the disclosed data and aligns the BRSR more closely with international standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Integrated Reporting Framework, and the emerging ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) framework.
For institutional investors and ESG analysts, the BRSR represents a significant step toward standardised, comparable sustainability data across Indian listed companies. Prior to the BRSR, sustainability disclosures were voluntary and varied widely in scope, format, and verifiability. The mandatory structured disclosure enables quantitative ESG screening, year-on-year progress tracking, and sector-level benchmarking — capabilities that support the construction of ESG-themed funds and integration of sustainability factors into fundamental analysis.