India to lead impact measurement market in Asia-Pacific with over $500-mn revenue by 2030: Report

As the ESG, Sustainability & Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) market evolved over the last two decades, India has now emerged as a significant IMM market in Asia-Pacific with $531 million in projected revenues by 2030. India’s revenue in 2020 was pegged at $137 million.

The findings are reported in The Size of ESG, Sustainability and Impact Measurement & Management Market study by Aspire Circle and Aspire Impact. The report highlights India’s share in global ESG, Sustainability & Impact Investments is 1% of $59 trillion, whereas her share in IMM is 1.5%.

IMM can also play a significant role in India and other emerging markets, driving inclusive growth, achieving SDGs, and her 2070 net-zero target. Hence, the government must consider how to compete in the new economy by preparing India Inc for an era of Impact Capitalism through superior business alignment to ESG, Sustainability & Impact Assessments. Also, the Indian government modified the erstwhile Business Responsibility Reporting (BRR) into Business Responsibility & Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) in 2021-22, which was initially voluntary, but has been made mandatory for top 1,000 listed companies from FY23 onwards.

The BRSR can be simplified and made a superior investment input through, a more quantitative orientation (for example, NASDAQ has 30 KPIs whereas BRSR has >125 KPIs & questions); and, segregation into three sections- ESG, Sustainability & Impact, each section crisper and focused, to help investors and shareholders find meaningful information. India Inc will also leapfrog to the third level- Impact, which pioneering Indian companies are doing voluntarily.

Also, the European Union requires ESG, Sustainability & Impact Assessment companies to not have any conflict of interest and hence consulting or credit rating companies cannot house such initiatives. India must consider a similar stand to show its intent for unbiased ratings.

The study also highlights that the IMM has globally grown from $2 billion in 2010 to $7.7 billion in 2020, a 4X growth in 10 years. IMM is expected to continue the trajectory and with 15% CAGR, deliver a whopping $31.2-billion IMM market 2030.

This report is based on a sample of over 550 organisations and uses a bottom-up forecasting method. Of the over 550 players profiled, more than 50 were based in India.