On Monday 12 June, the European Commission launched a consultation on draft standards for corporate extra-financial reporting (ESRS). These ESRS projects stem from the ‘CSRD’ directive on corporate sustainability reporting, which aims to put financial data on the same footing as corporate social and environmental responsibility data. The ESRS were developed by the ‘European Financial Reporting Advisory Group’ (EFRAG) and subsequently adopted by the European Commission.
On Friday 9 June, the Commission published a draft delegated act with the first set of ESRS. The Commission will take account of the comments received before finalising the text and submitting it to the European Parliament and the Council for consideration.
“These draft standards include provisions designed to limit the burden on reporting companies while enabling companies to demonstrate their efforts to comply with the ‘Green Deal’ agenda and, accordingly, to have access to sustainable financing”, said Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets, in a press release.
At a press briefing on Tuesday 13 June, Pascal Durand MEP (S&D, French), rapporteur for the CSRD, expressed his relief at the delegated act (see EUROPE 13161/17): “It is a step back from the EFRAG proposal, but at least it leaves the four pillars of climate, biodiversity, governance and social untouched”. “With the lobbying to reduce ambitions, I was afraid that everything outside the climate would fall by the wayside”, he continued. He was also pleased to see that taxonomy and dual materiality were still part of the text, but regretted that the ESRS had been “lowered by 40%”.
Read the draft delegated act: https://aeur.eu/f/7gk
Read the consultation: https://aeur.eu/f/7gl (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)