SEBI’s BRSR guidelines have shifted sustainability reporting from voluntary to mandatory: Ashish Kothari, VP & Partner, Kyndryl Consult India

As sustainability becomes a critical business imperative, Ashish Kothari, VP & Partner at Kyndryl Consult India, shares how Kyndryl’s ESG consulting services are designed to address real-world challenges businesses face in meeting sustainability goals, regulatory requirements, and operational efficiency targets. The company’s offerings focus on actionable outcomes, such as energy efficiency assessments, decarbonization mapping, and data-driven decision-making

Some edited excerpts from the interview:

Kyndryl recently introduced new ESG consulting services. Could you outline what these services entail and the company’s broader vision in the ESG consulting space?
Kyndryl Consult’s ESG offerings encompass a growing set of capabilities that address sustainability challenges through IT. These capabilities ensure both efficient green IT and a strengthened organizational ESG posture, as we craft a journey from “sustainable IT” to “IT for sustainability.” The services provided include ESG measurement (covering climate risks and opportunities) and data management, which support ESG-related decision-making in areas like product and service design. Kyndryl Consult accelerates digital transformation of enterprises by aligning business outcomes with technology. It brings together our technical capabilities with data-driven insights from the Kyndryl Bridge platform and the collaborative problem-solving expertise of Kyndryl Vital to drive innovation. Together, they empower businesses to achieve their ESG objectives while improving overall efficiency and impact.

How do Kyndryl Consult’s ESG offerings address the need for better visibility into resource use, such as energy consumption, and assist clients in making data-driven sustainability decisions?
The Sustainability Module in Kyndryl Consult’s Transformation Strategy and Roadmap (TSR) offers a flexible framework to make strategic decisions. It provides an energy efficiency assessment that measures resource and energy consumption, environmental impact of the company’s IT estate and provides climate related goals, a decarbonization map and risk resilient infrastructure.

Additionally, a centralized platform called Kyndryl Sustainability Advisor, allows measurement of energy and GHG emission data from distributed workload in a hybrid multi-cloud IT landscape, creation of report on sustainability KPI and analysis of the data using AI/ML to recommend areas of resource optimization.

With stricter regulations around sustainability reporting, such as SEBI’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report, how does Kyndryl help clients achieve compliance while setting up processes for long-term sustainability?
SEBI’s BRSR guidelines have shifted sustainability reporting from voluntary to mandatory for certain organizations, enhancing transparency and aligning Indian companies with global sustainability standards. This shift, along with growing consumer expectations for ethical and environmentally sound products, has led businesses to embed ESG targets within their KPIs and corporate strategy.

For FY25, SEBI mandates that the top 250 companies by market cap compile supply chain ESG data, making timely ESG reporting essential. Kyndryl’s partnership with Worldwide Generation (WWG) and its G17Eco solution offers customers a sustainability platform with a digital taxonomy, enabling them to track and report ESG progress in compliance with global standards and regulations. This platform enhances resource visibility, regulatory compliance, and sustainability efforts.

How does Kyndryl Consult envision the future of ESG consulting, and what areas do you see as emerging priorities for both clients and consultants in this space?
The market for sustainability consulting services is forecast to grow at a five-year CAGR of 47.8%, reaching $64.8 billion in 2027 driven by businesses seeking expert guidance to navigate complex ESG requirements and meet sustainability goals.

Moving forward, companies will increasingly adopt the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for their ESG strategies, alongside country-specific regulations. This will lead them to seek consultants who offer innovative, customized solutions to unique sustainability challenges, such as utilizing AI and blockchain for improved ESG data management and transparency. Consultants, in turn, will need to stay up-to-date with these evolving technologies to develop optimized net-zero roadmaps, especially given the pressing need for standardized ESG metrics and the talent shortage in the sector.