BRSR Core explained: the nine attributes, assessment or assurance, and the glide path

The BRSR asks hundreds of questions. BRSR Core picks out the indicators that matter most for comparing companies — and requires an independent party to check them. SEBI introduced it in July 2023¹ and revised it in March 2025². This guide explains what it covers, who needs it and when, and how to get ready.

What are the nine BRSR Core attributes?

BRSR Core is set out in Annexure 17A of SEBI's master circular for listed entities³. Its key performance indicators sit under nine attributes:

The circular calls these KPIs a "base methodology": a company that adjusts a measure for its industry must say so¹. The Industry Standards on Reporting of BRSR Core — written by the Industry Standards Forum (ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI) with the exchanges, in consultation with SEBI — explain how each KPI is to be reported, and listed companies must follow them from FY 2024-25⁴.

Who needs assessment or assurance, and from when?

The requirement is phased in by market capitalisation. The years have not changed since 2023³:

Other listed companies may obtain BRSR Core assessment or assurance voluntarily.

Assessment or assurance — what is the difference?

Until March 2025 BRSR Core needed reasonable assurance. SEBI's circular of 28 March 2025 changed the requirement to assessment or assurance, describing the change as making verification "profession agnostic"²; the word "reasonable" now appears only in a footnote of the master circular³:

• Assurance is an engagement under an assurance standard. In India that has meant ICAI's SSAE 3000 for sustainability information; internationally, ISAE 3000 (Revised) and ISAE 3410 for GHG statements, and from periods beginning on or after 15 December 2026, ISSA 5000⁶.
• Assessment is a "third-party assessment undertaken as per the standards developed by the Industry Standards Forum"³.

In practice, companies have so far chosen assurance. KPMG's review of FY 2024-25 reports found that all 94 NIFTY100 companies it covered obtained reasonable assurance on BRSR Core, and none used the assessment route⁵.

Who may do the assessment or assurance?

SEBI's rules on the provider are short and strict³:

• The board must make sure the provider has the necessary expertise.
• There must be no conflict of interest: the provider and its associates may not sell products, or provide non-assessment, non-assurance or consulting services, to the company or its group.

That rules out, for example, using the firm that helped you build your ESG data process to assure it.

What about the value chain?

The 2023 circular planned value chain disclosures on a comply-or-explain basis for the top 250, covering the partners that together made up 75% of purchases or sales. The 2025 revision made them voluntary and changed how partners are chosen²³:

• Value chain partners are those that are individually 2% or more of the company's purchases or sales by value.
• The company may limit its disclosure to partners covering 75% of purchases and of sales, and must state the percentage covered.
• Disclosure is voluntary for the top 250 from FY 2025-26; assessment or assurance of it is voluntary from FY 2026-27.

Our guide to collecting ESG data from sites and suppliers covers how to ask partners for figures.

How should a company prepare?

An assessor or assurer tests whether each reported figure can be supported. The questions are predictable:

1. Where does this number come from? The source records — meter readings, fuel logs, invoices, payroll, incident registers — for each site and month.
2. How was it calculated? The method, the conversion factors and emission factors, their version and why they apply.
3. Who checked it? Named approvals, with the person who entered a figure different from the person who approved it.
4. What changed? A record of corrections after approval, and of restated prior-year figures with the reason.
5. Is the boundary right? Which sites and entities are included, and why any are excluded.

For teams that start in the last quarter of the year, the hardest part is often not the KPI arithmetic but finding the evidence for figures entered months earlier. Our guide to getting ready for BRSR Core assessment or assurance turns these questions into a plan.

How ESGTrack helps

ESGTrack calculates the BRSR Core KPIs from approved data, keeps the evidence fingerprinted with each figure, shows an evidence heatmap across the Core KPIs by site and month, and gives your provider a workspace to query, test and sign — with assured figures locked once signed. See BRSR and BRSR Core and assurance readiness.