Description

The intersection of capital markets, corporate governance, and sustainable development has, over three decades, given rise to a transformative shift in management practice: the systematic disclosure and evaluation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance. Once confined to niche ethical investment circles, ESG reporting has evolved into a mainstream imperative, shaping investment decisions, regulatory frameworks, and stakeholder expectations across both developed and emerging economies. Today, ESG performance is no longer an addendum to financial reporting but a substantive dimension of enterprise value and long-term organisational legitimacy. India’s ESG reporting journey reflects a trajectory of incremental but decisive policy evolution. The National Voluntary Guidelines (2009) provided the normative foundations; SEBI’s mandatory Business Responsibility Report (BRR) regime (2012) introduced the first disclosure obligations; and the National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC, 2019) aligned the framework with the SDGs, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the Paris Agreement. The most transformative development arrived with SEBI’s introduction of the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework in May 2021, mandated for the top 1,000 listed companies from FY 2022–23. The 2023 enhancement of BRSR Core — introducing 49 Key Performance Indicators and mandatory third-party assurance for the top 150 companies, progressively extending to the top 500 places India at the frontier of ESG regulatory innovation in emerging markets. This study presents a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of ESG performance among India’s top listed companies under the BRSR framework, using structured XBRL disclosures filed with the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for FY 202425. The effective sample comprises 982 companies with valid and sufficiently complete BRSR filings, classified across 22 sectors per the NSE’s standardised framework. The study’s defining contribution lies in its dual benchmarking design: sector-level performance is consistently contextualised against the economy-wide all-India distribution across all 21 ESG parameters (7 Environmental, 7 Social, and 7 Governance), enabling both intra-sector and cross-sector comparison within a single integrated analytical instrument. Five specific objectives structure the study: benchmarking ESG performance across all 21 parameters and 22 sectors; evaluating disclosure quality and completeness; generating sector-specific insights across the Indian economy; facilitating evidence-based policy dialogue on the BRSR framework’s evolution; and establishing a longitudinal baseline for tracking India’s corporate ESG trajectory over time. The 21-parameter framework is grounded in stakeholder theory, institutional theory, and the resource-based view, positioning ESG performance as a strategic organisational capability rather than a compliance cost. Methodologically, the study deploys a 1,525-question bank derived from the official BRSR template and NSE XBRL utility, mapped against all disclosures in each filing. Data integrity is maintained through a strict “as-reported” fidelity principle, with median values used where data distributions are highly skewed by outliers. Non-disclosure is treated as analytically meaningful reflecting gaps in ESG governance maturity. The study distinguishes rigorously between disclosure completeness (whether an indicator was reported at all) and disclosure quality (the depth, specificity, and verifiability of the reported information). The findings carry direct relevance for institutional investors, regulators, corporate boards, lenders, civil society, and the academic community, each of whom will find in this report a distinct analytical utility for navigating India’s rapidly evolving corporate sustainability landscape

Publication Date

1-8-2026

Publisher

Supply Chain Management Centre, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Keywords

SEBI Regulatory Framework, BRSR Core, ESG Disclosure Quality, Corporate Governance, Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR), Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Performance, Corporate sustainability disclosure, Responsible business conduct, Listed companies in India

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