Published Paper Details:

The Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) is an initiative by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) towards integrating sustainability and responsible business conduct into the corporate reporting framework. It is an attempt to align Indian disclosure requirements with global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards and is in conformity with National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC), which outline nine principles guiding ethical, transparent, and sustainable business behavior. It enables stakeholders, investors, and regulators to assess the performance of companies beyond financial indicators. Hence, with the growing emphasis on BRSR disclosure, this research examines the temporal consistency and variation in disclosure practices across companies and sectors. The study had examined the companies from High-Carbon intensive and Low-Carbon intensive sectors across 9 principles of BRSR considering both essential and leadership indicators by using SEBI's BRSR Guidance Notes as the framework. A scoring mechanism was developed by allocating equal weightage to essential and leadership indicators for 9 BRSR principles. A sample of 24 listed companies was analyzed over a three-year period to evaluate their reporting patterns. Statistical tests such as Intra-Class Correlation, Kruskal Wallis H Test and Mann-Whitney U Test were applied. The findings revealed that there exists differences in reporting practices amongst the companies within both sectors but the High-Carbon intensive sector demonstrates the need for stronger and more transparent sustainability reporting practices particularly in environmental protection and customer value, given its higher environmental impact.