The Ministry of Corporate Affairs published the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct in March 2019 [L3-C1]. Nine principles. Same nine that structure the current BRSR Section B (policy audit) and Section C (principle-wise performance). Knowing what each principle covers, and where its assurance risk sits, is the shortest path to reading a BRSR fluently. Twenty minutes of tour.
The nine principles at a glance
| Principle | Short label | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Principle 1 | Ethics, transparency, accountability | Anti-corruption, Related Party Transactions, whistleblower, POSH data placement, ethics training |
| Principle 2 | Sustainable and safe products | R&D expenditure on sustainability, lifecycle assessment, product certifications, sustainable sourcing |
| Principle 3 | Employee well-being | Wages, benefits, health insurance, safety metrics (LTIFR, fatalities), training hours, complaints on working conditions |
| Principle 4 | Stakeholder engagement | Materiality assessment, stakeholder identification, engagement mechanisms, vulnerable stakeholder consideration |
| Principle 5 | Human rights | Human rights training, complaints on discrimination, forced labour, child labour, minimum wage compliance, POSH again from the rights angle |
| Principle 6 | Environment | GHG emissions Scope 1, 2 and 3, energy consumption, water withdrawal-consumption-discharge, waste, biodiversity, air emissions, EPR compliance |
| Principle 7 | Policy advocacy | Industry association memberships, public consultation participation, transparency of lobbying |
| Principle 8 | Inclusive growth and equitable development | Social impact assessments, CSR spend under Section 135, procurement from small producers, sustainable development in operating areas |
| Principle 9 | Customer value | Product recalls, customer complaints, data breaches under DPDP, product labelling, cyber security incidents affecting customers |
How Section B uses the principles
Section B asks, for each of the nine principles, a battery of yes-no-N/A questions. Does your company have a policy that covers this principle. Is the policy Board-approved. Does it cover the value chain. Has it been translated for use by frontline employees. Are there mechanisms for stakeholder input. This is a policy audit dressed as a reporting section. Assurance providers open Section B first to check the policy pack exists and matches what is claimed. If a company answers "yes, we have a Board-approved human rights policy that covers the value chain" for Principle 5 but cannot produce the document, the entire Principle 5 disclosure loses credibility.
Module 3 walks through Section B row by row and gives you the nine-policy draft pack you need to make honest yes answers.
How Section C uses the principles
Section C asks, for each of the nine principles, a set of Essential Indicators (mandatory) and Leadership Indicators (recommended, to be answered on a comply-or-explain basis). Essential Indicators are the numbers that assurance providers verify. Leadership Indicators are aspirational and rating agencies read them to score the company on ESG maturity.
Modules 4 and 5 of this course walk through every Essential and Leadership Indicator for every principle, with worked examples and calculation methodologies.
Where the assurance-scrutiny risk sits
Not every principle carries equal assurance risk. The highest-risk principles for BRSR Core reasonable assurance are Principle 3 (safety metrics, wages), Principle 5 (POSH complaints, human rights complaints), and Principle 6 (GHG, water, waste). These are the principles where the numbers are calculated, denominators matter, and evidence has to survive an assurance walkthrough. Principles 1 and 4 are lower-risk in assurance terms because they are largely policy-and-process disclosures. Principle 7 is the lowest-risk from an assurance standpoint but the highest-risk from a reputational standpoint (a company that funds anti-climate lobbying while claiming environmental leadership will be caught here).
Which principles the ESG rating agencies weight highest
Every ESG rating agency has a proprietary weighting scheme. MSCI, CRISIL, Sustainalytics, and S&P Global weight the nine BRSR principles differently, and the weightings drift year on year. The consistent pattern across agencies through 2025 and 2026 has been to give the highest weight to Principle 6 environmental attributes (particularly GHG, water, and waste intensity) and to Principle 3 employee attributes (particularly safety and wages). Principle 9 customer-value attributes have risen in weight since the DPDP Act 2023 [L3-C2] came into force, because data-breach disclosures under Principle 9 now overlap with DPDP breach notifications and rating agencies triangulate the two.
The one-line summary you can quote to a partner
Nine NGRBC principles. Section B is a nine-principle policy audit. Section C is nine principles worth of Essential and Leadership Indicators. Principles 3, 5 and 6 carry the assurance risk. Principles 6 and 3 carry the ESG-rating weight. Principle 7 carries the reputational risk. Everything else is scaffolding around those five.
Next lesson: opening a real filed BRSR and reading it end-to-end. Infosys FY24 as the base case. Twenty minutes and you will know how to navigate any BRSR by structure.