ESG Reporting Frameworks & Standards: A Complete Guide

Last updated: 6 October 2026

If you run sustainability at an Indian listed company, you have probably heard five acronyms in one meeting: BRSR, GRI, ISSB, CSRD, CDP. They get used as if they were interchangeable. They are not. Some are law, some are standards, some are voluntary disclosure platforms, and only one of them is certainly mandatory for you today.

This guide sorts that out. It covers what each framework actually is, which ones apply to which kind of Indian company, how they overlap so you can collect data once, and where the rules stand in October 2026. It is written for Indian listed entities, so BRSR comes first and everything else is the layer on top.

The short answer

If you are one of India's top 1,000 listed companies by market capitalisation, you must file BRSR with SEBI. That is the only non-negotiable. Everything else depends on who your investors, customers and parent companies are.

If you have global institutional investors, you will likely be asked for GRI-based or ISSB-aligned disclosures. If you sell into the EU or sit inside a large EU group, CSRD may reach you directly or through your customers. If your buyers send a CDP request, you answer CDP. The rest of this guide helps you work out which of those apply and how to avoid reporting the same number five times.

Framework, standard, regulation: three different things

Most of the confusion comes from mixing these three words up. They sit at different layers.

A regulation is a legal requirement. It tells you who must report, what, and by when. BRSR (from SEBI) and CSRD (from the EU) are regulations. Breaking them has consequences.

A standard is a detailed rulebook for how to measure and disclose. GRI Standards, IFRS S1 and S2 from the ISSB, SASB Standards and ESRS are standards. A regulation can adopt a standard or write its own. The EU's CSRD, for example, requires reporting under the ESRS standards.

A framework is a structure for thinking about disclosure, such as the four pillars of governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets that came out of TCFD. Frameworks usually get absorbed into standards over time. TCFD is the clearest example. It disbanded after its 2023 status report, and the FSB asked the IFRS Foundation to take over monitoring of climate disclosures. The ISSB's IFRS S2 now carries TCFD's structure forward.

Then there are disclosure platforms like CDP, where you answer a questionnaire that investors and buyers use to score you. CDP is none of the above, but it matters commercially, because it describes itself as connecting more than 22,000 organisations with disclosure requests.

Name	What it is	Mandatory for you?
BRSR / BRSR Core	SEBI regulation and its own template	Yes, top 1,000 listed entities
GRI Standards	Global standard, impact-focused	No, voluntary
IFRS S1 / S2 (ISSB)	Global standard, investor-focused	Not in India yet
SASB Standards	Industry-specific metrics, now maintained by the ISSB	No, voluntary
CSRD / ESRS	EU regulation and its standards	Only if you fall in its scope
CDP	Disclosure platform and scoring	No, but often requested by buyers
TCFD	Framework, disbanded in 2023	No, now folded into ISSB

BRSR: your baseline

SEBI introduced the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report in its circular of 10 May 2021. It applies to the top 1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation. BRSR Core is the smaller set of key indicators inside it that must be assured. The glide path is set: top 150 companies from FY2023-24, extending to the top 1,000 by FY2026-27. If you are in the top 1,000, assume assured reporting this financial year.

Two changes from SEBI's circular of 28 March 2025 matter in practice:

Assurance or assessment. For BRSR Core, you can now choose between assurance and a third-party "assessment" under standards set by the Industry Standards Forum. In SEBI's board memo of December 2024, assessment is the lighter option.
Value chain disclosures are voluntary. The top 250 listed entities can disclose value chain data from FY2025-26, with assessment or assurance of those disclosures from FY2026-27. Value chain partners are those that account for 2% or more of your purchases or sales, and disclosure can be limited to 75% coverage.

What are companies actually doing? KPMG reviewed 94 of the NIFTY 100 for the year ended 31 March 2025. All of them chose reasonable assurance on BRSR Core, and none chose assessment. 57 took extra voluntary assurance, 41 reference GRI, and 45 restated prior-year numbers, mostly because of methodology changes. The real work is not filing the template. It is getting data that survives assurance, and keeping methods stable year to year.

This page is about how BRSR fits with the other frameworks. For the full compliance walkthrough, read our guide to ESG reporting in India, and see BRSR requirements in India for the indicator-level detail.

GRI: the common language

The GRI Standards are the most widely used voluntary standards. They cover a company's impacts on the economy, environment and people, which is a different question from what ESG does to your enterprise value. Because of that, GRI is usually the best fit for stakeholder-facing sustainability reports.

In India, GRI is also the easiest bridge. BRSR does not require GRI, but many of its indicators map to GRI disclosures, and 41 of the 94 NIFTY companies KPMG reviewed already reference it. Two new topic standards are coming: GRI 102 Climate Change 2025 and GRI 103 Energy 2025, both effective for reporting from 1 January 2027.

ISSB: what global investors will ask for

IFRS S1 (general requirements) and IFRS S2 (climate) are built for investors. They focus on sustainability risks and opportunities that affect enterprise value. The ISSB builds on SASB, TCFD and CDSB.

India is not on the IFRS Foundation's list of 40 jurisdictions that have decided to use or are introducing ISSB Standards. That list includes the UK, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Brazil, China and the EU, and together those jurisdictions cover roughly 60% of global GDP. So ISSB is not an Indian obligation today. But if you raise capital abroad, have subsidiaries in those countries, or answer to global asset managers, you will see it in requests.

An opinion piece in the ICAI journal argues that BRSR and BRSR Core are converging with IFRS S1 and S2, moving toward financial materiality. That is a view, not an official position, so treat it as direction of travel rather than a guarantee. ICAI's Sustainability Reporting Standards Board has also released an exposure draft of a framework for sustainability assurance engagements (20 May 2026), which is worth watching if assurance is a cost line for you.

CSRD and ESRS: who in India is actually affected

The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive was cut back heavily by the Omnibus package. Directive 2026/47 was published on 26 February 2026 and entered into force on 18 March 2026. The numbers matter for Indian groups:

EU companies: more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million net turnover. First reports are for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027, published in 2028.
Non-EU groups: EU turnover above €450 million, with an EU subsidiary or branch turning over more than €200 million. Reporting starts for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2028, with first reports in 2029.

A cap now limits what large companies can ask of their value chain partners, and sector-specific standards were replaced by voluntary guidelines. On 3 July 2026 the Commission adopted revised ESRS that cut mandatory datapoints by over 60% and total datapoints by over 70%. At the time of writing, that act is in the Parliament and Council scrutiny period. EY expects the revised standards to apply from FY2027 with Set 1 still usable for FY2026, but check the final text before you plan around that.

What this means for most Indian listed companies: you are probably not directly in scope. The exposure is indirect. If you supply an EU group that is in scope, expect data requests, though the value chain cap is meant to limit them. Indian companies with large EU subsidiaries should check the thresholds now. For the detail, read our CSRD requirements page. Note that older material, including some on this site, still quotes the pre-Omnibus thresholds of 250 employees and €40 million turnover. Those no longer apply.

CDP: the buyer-driven one

CDP is not a regulation. It is a questionnaire for climate, water and forests, and its scores influence investor and procurement decisions. Since 2024 its questionnaire has been aligned with IFRS S2, and its climate datapoints have followed TCFD since 2018. CDP also says it is substantially aligned with ESRS E1 (pre-Omnibus), partially aligned with GRI 102, 103 and 303, and aligned with the GHG Protocol.

In India it tends to arrive through a customer or investor request, not through law. If you receive one, answer it. See our CDP reporting guide.

How the frameworks map to each other

The good news is that a large share of the underlying data is the same. Greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water, waste, workforce data and governance disclosures feed several frameworks at once. The differences are in definition, boundary, materiality lens and format.

Three official bridges exist, and they save real time:

GRI and ESRS. EFRAG and GRI published an interoperability index in November 2023. A company reporting under ESRS is deemed to report "with reference" to GRI.
ESRS and IFRS. EFRAG and the IFRS Foundation published joint interoperability guidance in August 2023, covering climate disclosures.
CDP and the rest. CDP's framework alignment page maps its questions to IFRS S2, TCFD, ESRS, GRI and the GHG Protocol.

BRSR has no official crosswalk to these, so you build your own. Here is how we would think about it:

Data point	BRSR	GRI	ISSB / CDP / ESRS
Scope 1 and 2 emissions	BRSR Core, Principle 6	GRI 305	IFRS S2, CDP C6, ESRS E1
Energy consumption	BRSR Core, Principle 6	GRI 302 (GRI 103 from 2027)	ESRS E1, CDP C8
Scope 3 emissions	Value chain (voluntary)	GRI 305	IFRS S2, CDP C6, ESRS E1
Water withdrawal and discharge	BRSR Core, Principle 6	GRI 303	CDP Water, ESRS E3
Workforce and safety	Principles 3 and 5	GRI 403, 405	ESRS S1

That table is a starting point, not a substitute for checking each framework's exact definitions. Boundaries differ: BRSR is entity-level, GRI is impact-based, and ESRS uses a double materiality approach. Mismatched boundaries are the most common reason the same emissions figure shows up as two different numbers in two reports.

Which frameworks does your company need?

Here is a decision guide by company type. Think of BRSR as the base and everything else as optional layers.

Top 150 listed company, global investors

You already file BRSR with assured Core indicators. Add GRI as your reporting language, because your investors will expect it. Map to ISSB (IFRS S1 and S2) for the investor conversation. Answer CDP if you are asked. Check CSRD exposure through your EU subsidiaries and customers.

Listed company ranked 150 to 1,000

BRSR Core assurance reaches you by FY2026-27. Put your effort there first. A voluntary GRI reference is a sensible second step if you have institutional investors or large customers. Everything else can wait until someone asks.

Indian exporter or supplier to EU groups

You may not be in CSRD scope, but your customers might be. Expect questionnaires. Building a clean Scope 1, 2 and 3 baseline now, aligned with GHG Protocol, answers most of them. CBAM is a separate issue for some sectors, and it deserves its own plan.

Unlisted or pre-IPO company

No SEBI mandate yet, but listing readiness matters. Start collecting BRSR-format data early so your first filing is not a scramble.

Indian company with large EU or UK operations

Check CSRD thresholds first. If the EU subsidiary turns over more than €200 million and the group more than €450 million in the EU, you may be in scope from FY2028. UK operations may face UK sustainability reporting rules based on ISSB.

Our BRSR vs CSRD vs ISSB comparison goes deeper on each of these side by side.

Report once, use everywhere

The way to avoid reporting fatigue is to treat the frameworks as views on one dataset, not as separate projects. In practice that looks like this:

Fix your organisational boundary and stick to it across all reports.
Set one method for each metric, and document it. Restating prior years because methods changed is expensive, and 45 of the NIFTY companies KPMG reviewed did exactly that.
Collect data at the source (plants, sites, vendors) once, with an audit trail, so it can be assured.
Map each metric to every framework you report under, once.
Produce each report from the same dataset.

That is the part where spreadsheets stop scaling. Breathe ESG is built for it, with a platform that supports BRSR and BRSR Core, GRI, CSRD and ESRS, CDP and CBAM reporting from a single data layer. And because software alone does not close the gap, we also provide ESG consulting, fractional Chief Sustainability Officers, Breathe Academy training and Breathe Zero for decarbonisation, so your team has people to lean on as well as tools.

What to watch for next

BRSR Core assurance extending to the top 1,000 by FY2026-27.
Value chain assurance for the top 250 from FY2026-27.
The final revised ESRS after the Parliament and Council scrutiny period.
India and the ISSB. No decision has been announced. Keep an eye on ICAI and MCA.
GRI 102 and 103 becoming effective on 1 January 2027.
IFRS S2 targeted amendments taking effect on 1 January 2027.

For a wider view across countries, see our ESG regulations in 2026 overview.

FAQs

Is BRSR mandatory for all Indian companies?

No. It applies to the top 1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation. For who is covered and from when, see is ESG reporting mandatory in India.

Is GRI mandatory in India?

No. SEBI does not require GRI, though many companies reference it alongside BRSR.

Do I need to follow ISSB in India?

Not today. India is not on the IFRS Foundation's list of adopting jurisdictions. Global investors may still ask for ISSB-aligned data.

Does CSRD apply to Indian companies?

Only if your group has an EU presence above the post-Omnibus thresholds, or if you are a supplier to an in-scope group. Most Indian listed companies are not directly in scope.

Is TCFD still active?

No. It disbanded after its 2023 report. Its recommendations now live inside IFRS S2.

Can one report satisfy BRSR, GRI and CDP?

Not as a single document, but one dataset can feed all three if you align boundaries and methods.

Talk to us

Not sure which frameworks you actually need? Book a demo and we will map your company against them.

Sources

Sources last checked on 6 October 2026.

Disclaimer

This article is for general information and is not legal, audit or investment advice. Regulations change often. Check the original sources, and speak to your legal or assurance advisers before making compliance decisions.