BRSR, explained: what it asks of listed companies

The Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting format asks listed companies to disclose a defined set of environmental, social and governance indicators — from energy and emissions data to workforce composition, supply-chain practices and governance processes. Its purpose is comparability: structured questions, asked the same way, of every reporting entity.

The practical challenge is rarely the format itself. It is data: most organisations discover that the information a BRSR report requires is scattered across finance, HR, operations and procurement, in different formats and at different levels of reliability.

That is why we recommend starting with a readiness assessment rather than a template. Map each disclosure area to the data that feeds it, identify where the data lives, who owns it and how it is verified. The gaps you find early are minor; the gaps you find during drafting are expensive.

BRSR Core adds a further dimension: for eligible entities, expectations around value-chain data and assurance readiness apply progressively. This raises the premium on evidence — documentation that shows where each number came from and how it was calculated.

If you are preparing your first report, sequence the work: readiness assessment, data collection, gap remediation, drafting, then management review. If you are preparing your fifth, the leverage is in controls — making next year's report a by-product of good data rather than an annual scramble.