ESG has a storytelling surplus and a systems deficit. The gap between what companies pledge and what they execute is not a communications problem -it is a decision architecture problem.
Sustainability starts where decisions are made
Every unit of industrial output begins with a draw from nature. The water in the cooling tower. The land under the factory floor. The raw materials extracted, refined, and consumed across supply chains that stretch across the country and beyond.These aren’t created by industry; they’re borrowed from nature. That borrowing carries an opportunity. Not merely the opportunity of a carbon offset or a tree plantation drive on Earth Day, but something deeper: the opportunity of making significant business decisions with a genuine awareness of what has been drawn from the earth, and a commitment to giving back.
Indian Companies aren’t lacking intent
Indian enterprises are increasingly stepping into this space. The sustainability commitments across annual reports, investor presentations, and BRSR filings reflect a real shift in the mindset of business leaders and their role. What is still evolving is the infrastructure required to translate that intent into consistent, measurable outcomes
That infrastructure gap is the central challenge of this moment. While 88% of mid-market Indian companies acknowledge that ESG regulations will materially impact their business, only 27% feel adequately prepared to meet those requirements. This is not a reflection of ambition, It is a reflection of how early we are in building the systems that make sustainability operational. The language, the targets, and the report sections are taking shape.
The invitation for Indian boardrooms this Earth Day is a gentle but important one: to begin thinking of ESG not only as a reporting discipline, but as a decision architecture where sustainability data informs capital allocation, procurement choices, and risk governance, rather than flowing only into annual disclosure filings.
The data challenge in Indian enterprises is real, and addressing it is the need of the hour. Most mid-market companies including manufacturers, exporters, infrastructure firms or consumer brands are still in the early stages of building structured systems to capture emissions, water use, supply chain risk, and governance metrics in a form that is auditable, consistent, and decision-ready. Sustainability teams are lean, board-level familiarity with ESG risk is still developing, and the connection between operational data and assurance readiness is a journey most organisations have only recently begun.
This is true even among larger listed entities, it reflects the genuine complexity of the task. ESG data in most Indian organisations naturally sits across departments: energy data in facilities, workforce data in HR, supplier information in procurement, emissions estimates with the sustainability function. Bringing these together into an integrated picture that a board risk committee or a CFO can act on is a meaningful systems challenge, and one that most organisations are working toward in good faith.
However, the stakes are rising. Global institutional investors are increasingly applying ESG filters in their capital allocation, and Indian companies with stronger, more verifiable sustainability data are finding it easier to access the capital pipelines that will fuel the next phase of growth. For mid-market firms seeking foreign institutional investment, preparing for IPOs, or competing for export contracts with buyers who bring their own supply chain sustainability expectations such as a well-built ESG track record is fast becoming a real-time competitive advantage. Grant Thornton’s International Business Report for Q2 2025 found that 79% of Indian mid-market firms plan to increase sustainability investment over the next twelve months — the highest level yet and well above the global average of 56.5%. The direction is clear. The opportunity is in moving from intention to infrastructure.
The regulatory environment is reinforcing this shift. SEBI’s BRSR framework has been expanding thoughtfully, with each phase designed to give organisations time to build capability alongside compliance. As formalised through the SEBI Circular dated March 28, 2025, the top 250 listed companies are encouraged to begin disclosing ESG performance across their value chains — covering upstream and downstream partners comprising 2% or more of purchases and sales, up to 75% of total procurement and sales value — on a voluntary basis from FY 2025–26, with assessment or assurance of those disclosures coming into scope from FY 2026–27. SEBI’s phased approach reflects a genuine sensitivity to the complexity of supply chain data particularly for organisations whose vendor base includes MSMEs that are themselves early in their sustainability journeys.
This is perhaps the most important dimension of the challenge: supply chain accountability. As one sustainability practitioner noted, “The supply chain here is vast and made up of many small businesses that don’t have the resources or infrastructure to track ESG data. The complexity comes from the sheer scale and fragmentation.” The opportunity for listed companies is to use this transition period not just to prepare their own disclosures, but to bring their supply chain partners along and build shared capability that strengthens the entire value chain, not just the anchor entity at its centre.
The question, then, is not whether the next report will be filed on time. It is whether sustainability is beginning to influence the decisions that matter – how capital is deployed, how suppliers are selected, and how risk is understood. Meaningful progress on ESG in India does not require restarting. It requires deepening the practice, ensuring that materiality assessments find their way into capital allocation decisions, that supply chain risk registers connect to procurement policy, and that decarbonisation pathways are reflected in capex planning. That the conversation in the board risk committee and the conversation in the BRSR filing are, over time, the same conversation.
And running underneath all of this is the more fundamental shift that this Earth Day invites. Industry’s relationship with nature is not a liability to be offset, but a dependency to be honoured. Stewardship is not about balancing a carbon ledger at year end. It is about bringing the awareness of what the earth provides into the room where decisions are made, so that every significant choice about how to grow, where to source, and how to operate carries within it a real reckoning with what is being borrowed and what is being returned.
The goal, then, is not more disclosure. It is better disclosure. Or more precisely, conscious disclosure where sustainability data does not simply satisfy a requirement, but actively informs how a business operates, grows, and gives back.
We are still early in this transition. The intent is already visible. The direction is clear. What is being built now is the infrastructure that connects the two.
A growing number of organisations are beginning to invest in that infrastructure bringing ESG data, risk intelligence, and execution into a single system so that sustainability moves closer to the core of decision-making. This is also the space where platforms like Northstar Impact Solution is emerging, focused on helping mid-market enterprises turn sustainability from a reporting obligation into an operational capability.
- NIS Comply: builds the structured ESG data foundation that boards can govern against and auditors can verify.
- NIS Insight: converts that data into material risk intelligence, peer benchmarking, and board-ready strategy priorities aligned to BRSR and SEBI requirements.
- NIS Alpha: drives operational execution, tracking sustainability initiatives, generating actions from risk outputs, and extending ESG accountability into the value chain through supplier engagement workflows. For Indian manufacturers, exporters, and multi-plant enterprises on this journey, NIS exists to make mindful reporting not just an aspiration, but an operating reality.
That shift – from promise to practice – is where the real opportunity lies.
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