ESG reporting (a.k.a. Sustainability Reporting) refers to the disclosure of data covering a company’s operations in three areas: environmental, social and corporate governance. It provides a snapshot of the business’s impact in these three areas for investors, customers and wider stakeholders. The value of ESG reporting is that it ensures organizations consider their impacts on sustainability issues and enables them to be transparent about the risks and opportunities they face.
There are many competing standards for ESG/Sustainability reporting including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and many others. However, there is now movement towards a global standard coming out of the recent COP26 conference in 2021 and COP27 in 2022.
The US-SEC has issued multiple drafts on climate related reporting and is expected to release it’s first set of climate disclosures in 2023 with implementation from FY 2024. The expectation is that the SEC will use ISSB standards (International Sustainability Standards Board – under IFRS).
The European Union (EU) Announced Green Deal in 2021 to help facilitate the energy transition in Europe towards renewable energy. 750 bEUR available in green financing. To qualify companies have to proof their Revenues, Opex and/or Capex are ‘green’. For this the EU Taxonomy was introduced focusing on 6 main criteria to address the issue of poor data quality, the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive).
EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) was tasked by the EU commission to convert the CSRD into the European Sustainability Resporting Standards (ESRS)
CSRD / ESRS are in force as of 2023 as of FY 2024 and apply to any company (listed or private) that has (2 out of 3 criteria will make the company eligible):
As of 2028 companies outside the EU but with operation in the EU that meet the criteria, will have to report under the CSRD.