Integrating BRSR Data into Green Accounting Towards Sustainable Economic Measurement

The increasing focus on environmental accounting in the 2025 SNA has prompted statistical agencies to integrate emission intensity into national accounts. This paper uses two years of Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) data to examine emission intensity trends and their cost implications across industries. While BRSR reporting by India’s top 1000 listed companies is still stabilising, early disclosures under Principle 6 provide valuable insights into corporate alignment with SDG goals. Most reports are standalone, with manufacturing dominating the filings. The evidence from BRSR data points to persistently high and uneven emissions intensity across sectors, with little aggregate improvement over time and substantial firm-level heterogeneity. Emission reductions are neither widespread nor systematic, as most firms exhibit neutral energy-use behaviour, while some sectors even deteriorate. The role of firm characteristics in driving green transition is limited and highly sectorspecific: size or growth alone rarely leads to lower emissions, and meaningful reductions are observed mainly when large firm size coincides with high growth in a few service-oriented segments. This suggests that structural factors and sectoral constraints dominate firm-level incentives, and that without targeted policies or stronger regulatory and market signals, voluntary transitions toward lower emission intensity are likely to remain slow and uneven.