How we handle your ESG consulting
Stripped of the jargon, our job comes down to answering three practical questions: what is your business actually doing, can you prove the numbers, and what needs fixing first?
Most of this work is unglamorous. It means pulling twelve months of utility data, auditing HR registers, and walking the shop floor to verify that your actual operations match your stated policies. The published report is the easy part; it only holds weight if the data underneath is airtight.
We do that underlying groundwork ourselves. We don’t hand you an empty template and a deadline. We do the heavy lifting to get your business audit-ready.
Book a consultationWhere you are now, and where we start
Most conversations begin in one of these six places. You do not need to know which service you need before you call.
| What is happening | Where we would start |
|---|---|
| “A customer has sent us an ESG questionnaire and we cannot answer half of it.” | A rapid gap check against their specific template, then a full assessment so the next one is easy. |
| “SEBI now requires us to file a BRSR.” | ESG assessment first, then BRSR reporting. Filing without solid data underneath is how companies fail regulatory checks. |
| “A buyer in Europe is asking for our carbon footprint.” | Carbon assessment and GHG accounting across Scope 1, 2, and 3, built to withstand rigorous international scrutiny. |
| “We have hundreds of suppliers and no idea what their practices are.” | Vendor ESG assessments run at scale, so your Scope 3 data and risk profile are backed by real evidence. |
| “We have committed to something publicly and now have to deliver it.” | A dedicated sustainability lead working inside your business through our Sustainability Office as a Service, without a full-time hire. |
| “Nobody has asked us anything yet.” | Baseline ESG setup. Building the system now is calm and cost-effective, before an urgent client deadline forces your hand. |
Six services, one system
You can engage each service individually based on your budget, but they are designed to work together. The assessment feeds the report, and the data system ensures next year’s filing costs a fraction of the first.
How an engagement actually runs
Whichever service you start with, our process follows the same clear steps.
- Discovery call: We assess what is being asked of you and by whom, and give you an honest appraisal of whether it is achievable within your timeframe.
- Scoping: Defining your operational boundaries, business units, reporting periods, target frameworks, and existing documentation.
- Fieldwork: Site visits, interviews, utility audits, and ground-level observation. Where most consultancies rely on self-reported estimates from afar, we verify the data on the ground.
- Analysis and rating: Findings evaluated against the SIM framework, with compliance and performance gaps ranked by urgency and risk.
- Deliverable: The final report, carbon inventory, dashboard, or rating you requested, supported by a complete, audit-ready evidence pack.
- Handover or ongoing support: We equip your internal team to run the system independently, or we stay on to manage ongoing tracking and updates for you.
How to choose an ESG consulting firm
Six questions worth asking whoever you shortlist, including us.
- Ask who does the fieldwork. If the answer is that you fill in a data request template, you are buying a document, not an assessment.
- Ask what happens when your numbers look bad. A firm that has never delivered uncomfortable findings is not assessing anything.
- Ask whether they can assure their own report. Nobody credible can. Assurance has to be independent of the people who wrote it.
- Ask what you are left with afterwards. A PDF is not a system. You want the data structure, the owners and the cadence.
- Ask about their experience in your sector. A hospital, a footwear plant and an IT company have almost nothing in common at the metric level.
- Ask what happens next year. If the second report costs the same as the first, nothing was built.
Frameworks we align your reporting to
Which one applies to you depends on who is asking and why. Part of the first conversation is working that out, so you are not reporting against three standards when one would do.
| Framework | Who it applies to | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| BRSR and BRSR Core | Listed Indian companies and their key value chain suppliers. | The official SEBI mandate. It is mandatory for applicable firms, with key BRSR Core metrics requiring independent assurance. |
| GRI Standards 2021 | Any company, especially those with global buyers. | The most widely recognised international reporting language. |
| IFRS S1 and S2 (ISSB) | Companies with international investors. | Investor-focused disclosure on sustainability and climate-related risk. |
| GHG Protocol | Any business measuring or disclosing its carbon footprint. | The global standard for calculating Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. |
| SIM: Sustainability Index Metric | Our own assessment framework. | A 19 sub-pillar rating that turns an assessment into a score you can track and improve. |
| Buyer or customer format | Suppliers filling in a specific brand template. | Getting through vendor onboarding. Highly specific, but usually the most urgent priority on your desk. |
Where we work
We work with companies across India, from offices in Bangalore and Kerala. Fieldwork means we travel, so the office address matters less than whether we can get to your sites and back often enough to actually see how they run.
Most of our work to date has been in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, across healthcare, manufacturing, technology, hospitality and events.
Book a consultationWork we have done
Client names are withheld for confidentiality.
Healthcare
Multi-facility hospital group, Kerala
A full cycle across several facilities: as-is assessment, materiality assessment, ESG strategic framework and sustainability report.
Healthcare
Ayurvedic teaching hospital, Coimbatore
A GRI-referenced ESG report taken through independent limited assurance.
Manufacturing
Footwear manufacturer, Kozhikode
An inaugural GRI-aligned sustainability report, built from a standing start.
Frequently asked questions
What does an ESG consultant do, in practice?
Collects and verifies data about how your business operates, measures it against a recognised framework, tells you where the gaps are, and produces whatever document the person asking for it needs. Some of it is technical, most of it is legwork.
We are not a listed company. Do we need any of this?
Nothing is compulsory unless SEBI regulations apply to your company or a customer makes it a condition of contract. However, lenders, insurers, corporate clients, and export buyers now expect verified ESG data as standard. Voluntary work done calmly costs far less than mandatory work done in a panic.
What does ESG consulting cost?
It depends on how many sites and entities are in scope, which framework applies, how much usable data already exists and whether assurance is involved. We will tell you the range on the first call once we know those four things, and we will tell you plainly if your target budget is realistic or not for the work involved.
How long does a first engagement take?
For a company starting from nothing, plan for three to four months to a published report. An assessment on its own is quicker. If the data work is already done, a report takes six to eight weeks.
Do you do the work, or do you advise us while we do it?
We do the work. You review, correct and approve. Because the disclosures are yours and nothing gets published without your sign-off. If you would rather build the capability in-house, the Sustainability Office engagement is designed for exactly that.
Can you assure the report as well?
No, and neither can anyone else who wrote it. Assurance has to come from a party independent of the people who prepared the disclosures. What we do is build the evidence trail as we go, so your assurance provider is not starting from scratch.
Which framework should we report against?
Whichever one the person asking for it recognises. If SEBI applies to you, BRSR is not optional. If your pressure is coming from European buyers, GRI or their own template is usually the answer. Reporting against three standards when one would do is a common and expensive mistake.
Not sure which of these you need?
Most companies start here. Walk us through your immediate compliance or buyer requests, and we will confirm exactly what is required and how quickly it can be delivered.
Book a discovery call