BRSR - Ease of doing business

 Decisions taken by SEBI at its Board meeting held on 18th December, 2024

Ease of doing business with respect to Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR)

With a view to facilitate ease of doing business for listed entities and their value chain partners with regard to requirements under BRSR on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures and its assurance, and introduction of voluntary disclosure on green credits, the Board approved the following:

1 Deferring ESG disclosures for value chain, as well as “assessment or assurance” thereof, by one year. Hence, ESG disclosures for value chain shall apply from FY 2025-26 (as against the current requirement of FY 2024-25) and “assessment or assurance” thereof shall be applicable from FY 2026-27 (as against the current requirement of FY 2025-26).

2 Providing ESG disclosures for value chain shall be “voluntary”, instead of the present requirement of ‘comply-and-explain’.

3 Reducing the scope of value chain to cover the top upstream and downstream partners of a listed entity, individually comprising 2% or more of the listed entity's purchases and sales (by value), respectively, while providing that the listed entity may limit disclosure of value chain to cover 75% of its purchases and sales (by value), respectively.

4 Reporting of previous year numbers will be voluntary in case of first year of reporting of ESG disclosures for value chain.

5 Introduction of a leadership indicator in Principle 6 of BRSR for disclosure of Green Credits generated or procured by the listed entity and its top-10 value chain partners.

6 Substitution of “assurance” with “assessment or assurance” in SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, regarding BRSR. “Assessment” will be third-party assessment undertaken as per standards to be developed by the Industry Standards Forum (ISF) in consultation with SEBI. This would be applicable for BRSR Core disclosures for listed entities and value chain from FY 2024-25 and FY 2026-27 onwards, respectively.

SEBI would come out with a notification to bring all these into effect.