Standardisation of ESG Metrics within the Professional Services and IT/ITES Sectors in India Post-COVID

Abstract

ESG ratings for Indian companies frequently diverge across providers and this problem is
particularly acute for professional services and IT/ITES firms, whose asset-light, knowledge-intensive business models sit poorly within rating frameworks designed for asset-heavy industries. Post-COVID shifts in remote work, digital infrastructure and stakeholder expectations have widened this mismatch further. This research develops a conceptual framework for standardising ESG ratings across organisations in these sectors in India’s post-COVID context. The study is grounded in qualitative secondary analysis of global and Indian ESG literature, covering leading rating models, disclosure norms, critiques of current systems and standardisation debates, supplemented by limited primary survey data collected via LinkedIn and WhatsApp to triangulate the secondary evidence. Stakeholder, Institutional and Legitimacy theories are used to interpret why organisations respond to ESG pressures as they do and to ground a set of propositions linking dynamism, organisational attributes and standardisation outcomes. The research also situates this analysis within the India’s regulatory architecture, including SEBI’s BRSR and BRSR Core requirements. Its emerging oversight of ESG rating providers shows why standardisation is both complex, given diverse business models and regulatory interfaces, and increasingly necessary for investor confidence and policy coherence. Findings show that regulatory progress, particularly BRSR Core, has improved the availability and comparability of underlying disclosures, but methodological divergence between rating agencies persists, and current metrics remain poorly calibrated to sector-specific issues such as data privacy, hybrid work and digital governance. Practitioner survey responses reinforce this picture, showing strong support for standardisation alongside scepticism about whether existing metrics are driving meaningful outcomes. Building on these findings, this research proposes a four-dimensional framework, Environment, Social, Governance and Dynamism, along with practical guidelines on metric selection, weighting and scoring. The study concludes by outlining implications for organisations, rating agencies, standard-setters and policymakers, and by identifying the limitations of a secondary data led exploratory design, as a basis for more quantitative validation in the future.