On Wednesday 23 November the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) presented the first part of the draft standards for corporate sustainability reporting under the CSRD (see EUROPE 13061/5).
“It is time to put sustainability reporting on an equal footing with financial reporting and that is exactly what we are doing here”, said Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Services, in a statement. According to her, these standards are “an important tool to combat ‘greenwashing’”.
Kerstin Lopatta, former Acting Chair of EFRAG’s Technical Expert Group (TEG), explained the approach taken in developing the standards. “Our goal has been to strike the right balance between a game-changing step forward and a pragmatic implementation and to foster global sustainability reporting progress while taking full account of the feedback received through our public consultation and deliberations”, she said.
The Commission will now consult other European bodies, such as the European Environment Agency and the European Central Bank, as well as Member States on the draft standards. It would then adopt the final standards by delegated acts in June 2023, followed by a period of review by the European Parliament and the EU Council.
The companies concerned will have to apply these standards in the financial year 2024, for reports published in 2025. This set of drafts will be followed by eleven other draft European standards. Publicly traded SMEs are required to report from 2026, with a further voluntary opt-out until 2028, and will be able to report under separate and proportionate standards that EFRAG will develop next year.
For more information: https://aeur.eu/f/47v (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)