Insight

Why BRSR Scope 3 Means Your Indian Customers Need Your Carbon Data Too

ByteMill · 5 min read · Indian manufacturing, BRSR, carbon compliance

If you think carbon reporting is only for companies that export to Europe — you are about to be surprised. India's own stock market regulator has quietly created a chain of carbon accountability that reaches every factory supplying to a large Indian company.

What is BRSR, and why should you care?

SEBI — the Securities and Exchange Board of India — introduced the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework in FY2022-23. It is mandatory for India's top 1,000 listed companies. Think Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Mahindra, Godrej, ITC, Asian Paints, Bata.

These companies must now report their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. That part you may have heard about. But BRSR Core also requires Scope 3 reporting — and that is where things get interesting for you.

What is Scope 3, exactly?

A company's carbon footprint has three layers. Scope 1 is what they burn directly — their own furnaces, boilers, company vehicles. Scope 2 is the electricity they buy. Scope 3 is everything else upstream and downstream — including the emissions produced by their suppliers to make the goods they purchase.

The key insight

When a BRSR-listed company reports Scope 3, they need actual emission numbers from their suppliers. Not estimates. Not guesses. A real, methodology-backed carbon footprint figure from you — their vendor.

A real example: what this looks like in practice

Scenario

You run a leather components factory in Kanpur. You have never exported a single item. All your business goes to domestic buyers — including a large footwear brand that is listed on NSE.

That brand now has to file a BRSR report with SEBI. To complete their Scope 3 section, their procurement team emails you: "Please share your facility's carbon footprint data for FY2024-25."

If you cannot provide it, you become a compliance risk for them. They will find a supplier who can.

Who exactly is affected?

Any MSME that supplies goods or services to a company in India's top 1,000 listed companies is a potential Scope 3 data source. That list includes manufacturers in automotive components, leather, textiles, chemicals, food processing, packaging, logistics, and dozens of other sectors.

You do not need to be an exporter. You do not need to have a European buyer. If you have a large Indian corporate customer, there is a reasonable chance they will ask for your carbon data within the next 12 to 24 months — if they have not already.

What data do they actually need from you?

Most BRSR-reporting companies need your Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions — the direct emissions your facility produces — because that is what flows into their Scope 3 calculation. Specifically, they typically want:

— Total CO₂e per year from your facility
— Breakdown by source (electricity, fuel, process emissions)
— Intensity metric (emissions per tonne of output, or per ₹ crore turnover)
— The methodology used to calculate it

A proper GHG Protocol-aligned carbon footprint report covers all of this. It is the internationally recognised standard, and it is what both Indian and global buyers accept.

So what should you do?

The honest answer is: get ahead of it. The companies that prepare a carbon footprint report now — before the request arrives in their inbox — are the ones who stay preferred vendors. Those who scramble to respond after the fact are the ones who lose orders while they figure it out.

Bottom line

BRSR Scope 3 has created a domestic carbon data market in India that has nothing to do with exports. If you supply to a large Indian listed company, your carbon footprint number is now a piece of their regulatory compliance. The question is whether you will be ready when they ask for it.

Be ready before the request arrives

ByteMill delivers GHG Protocol-aligned Scope 1+2 carbon footprint reports for Indian manufacturers in 3 weeks, starting at ₹75,000.

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