Rustomjee: Three Years from BRSR Compliance to a Net Zero Pilot

At a Glance

Industry: Real estate (residential and commercial townships)
Services: BRSR reporting, ESG data management platform, materiality assessment, supply chain sustainability (Scope 3), sustainability reporting, decarbonisation advisory, outsourced ESG team
Frameworks: BRSR, GRI Standards, GRESB
Headline results: BRSR filed without operational disruption; 25+ critical vendors engaged on Scope 3; GRI-aligned report published; Net Zero Carbon building pilot under way

About the Client

Rustomjee is an Indian real estate developer known for design-led innovation and a customer-centric approach, with a large portfolio of residential and commercial townships. It faced two pressures at once: immediate regulatory mandates and long-term climate resilience.

What began as a compliance requirement became a full sustainability programme. Rustomjee engaged Oren to digitise its ESG data and to act as its strategic partner on Net Zero, GRESB, sustainability reporting and supply chain sustainability.

The Challenge: Beyond Compliance to Strategic Data

Data silos: collecting ESG data from projects and active construction sites was manual and error-prone, with no central system.
Limited strategic visibility: a materiality assessment done two years earlier covered only internal stakeholders, giving a narrow view of risks and opportunities.
Global ambition: to attract international capital, Rustomjee needed to go beyond Indian compliance and align with GRI and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), capabilities it did not yet have in-house.

Oren's Solution: A Three-Year Progression

Year 1: The Digital Foundation

Tech-led data management: Oren deployed Oren Sustainability Hub (OSH) to automate data collection across Rustomjee's projects, construction sites and corporate offices, replacing spreadsheets with auditable digital workflows.
BRSR compliance: using OSH, Oren supported Rustomjee's BRSR submission, meeting SEBI's requirements without disrupting operations.

Year 2: Strategy and Supply Chain

Materiality re-assessment: unlike the earlier internal-only exercise, this involved extensive external stakeholder engagement.
Governance and capacity building: a company-wide governance framework and department-specific ESG training.
Supply chain engagement (Scope 3): since most real estate emissions sit in the supply chain, Oren engaged 25+ critical vendors across cement, steel, pipes and fittings, tiles and paints, and began collecting and calculating their Scope 3 emissions data.
GRI reporting: Oren guided Rustomjee in publishing a Sustainability Report aligned with the GRI Standards.

Year 3: Advanced Decarbonisation

Oren now works as Rustomjee's outsourced ESG department.

Net Zero pilot: supporting a pilot project to develop a Net Zero Carbon building as the blueprint for future developments.
GRESB readiness: a GRESB maturity assessment to identify gaps and prepare for the first submission.
AI-driven data accuracy: AI-driven validation added to the data architecture, improving the accuracy of environmental data.
Quarterly alignment: quarterly meetings with leadership to coordinate Net Zero targets, track ESG KPIs and identify ISO certifications and further endorsements.

The Outcome: From Data Collection to Decarbonisation

Impact Area	Outcome
Compliance	Met SEBI's BRSR mandate through Oren Sustainability Hub, without operational disruption.
Data Integrity	Manual spreadsheets replaced with automated, auditable data collection across projects, construction sites and corporate offices, with AI-driven validation improving environmental data accuracy.
Disclosure & Ratings	GRI-aligned Sustainability Report published; GRESB readiness under way through a maturity assessment ahead of the first submission.
Supply Chain	25+ critical vendors across cement, steel, pipes and fittings, tiles and paints engaged to collect and calculate Scope 3 emissions data.
Governance & Strategy	Materiality refreshed with external stakeholders, company-wide ESG governance established and department-specific ESG training delivered.
Decarbonisation	Net Zero Carbon building pilot supported, with quarterly leadership reviews of Net Zero targets and ESG KPIs.

Complexities Managed

Data complexity: capturing reliable data from dynamic, labour-intensive active projects.
Vendor engagement: overcoming resistance and data gaps to secure Scope 3 data from material suppliers.
Strategic expansion: moving from a limited internal view of sustainability to a stakeholder-driven perspective that meets international standards.

Conclusion

By first building a digital foundation and then adding strategy, supply chain engagement and decarbonisation year by year, Rustomjee has made sustainability part of how it operates. With Oren as its outsourced ESG team, it now has the data, governance and Net Zero pilot in place as it prepares for its first GRESB submission.