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CSRD: EU sustainability reporting

From 2024, companies in the EU will be required to report on their sustainability performance. This has a significant impact on many companies, including those that do not directly fall under it. What does the CSRD entail, who is subject to it, and how can you deal with it?

What is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)?

The CSRD is a European directive for sustainability reporting. It requires companies to report on their sustainability performance using a set of sustainability criteria.

The CSRD covers three areas: Environment, Social and Governance, also known as ESG. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) set out exactly what you need to report on in these areas so that every company does it in the same way. These include, for example, gross scopes 1, 2, 3 and total GHG emissions, female/male ratio in senior management, human resources policies, or information on how you manage your relationships with your suppliers and the impact on your supply chain.

FAQs

Read the FAQs on the CSRD about the scope, the standards (ESRS), practical implementation and enforcement, the relationship with existing EU legislation, timelines, tips & tricks to get started and much more.

Webinars

Watch these webinars on the CSRD, with English subtitles, with plenty of practical examples:

Webinar on the supply chain (10 October 2023)

Webinar on double materiality (3 October 2023)

Webinar on the definitive standards (26 September 2023)

Which companies fall under the CSRD?

Companies subject to this new law in the Netherlands are:

  • large undertakings and public interest entities
  • listed medium-sized and small enterprises
  • certain non-EU enterprises

To find out if your company falls under the European Directive on mandatory sustainability reporting and when you should start reporting, we refer to the FAQ document, chapter 3. There you will also find the definition for large, medium and small-sized undertakings.

Companies that fall outside the scope of the CSRD may well experience repercussions arising from the CSRD. For example, companies that produce for a company subject to reporting obligations. This company may be asked to share information, that the company subject to the reporting obligation must report on.

Timeline

See the FAQs for the timeline.

European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)

The detailed description of the environment, social and governance topics can be found in the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). The related data points can be found here. Following an extensive due diligence process, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) drafted 12 standards in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. Environmental standards cover, for example, carbon emissions and water use. Social standards cover, for example, the company's own workforce, but also any affected communities. In addition, anti-corruption policies and animal welfare fall under governance standards. Cross-cutting standards set out the guiding principles and ground rules for the reporting. They also deal with the governance structure of a company, such as the role of the board and gender ratios.

The European Commission adopted the first ESRS set on 31 July 2023 and this set was published on 22 December 2023. See the website of the European Commission about the ESRS. Here you will find an explanation on how they were created, the text itself, a glossary and a document with questions and answers.

CSRD Sustainability Reporting and IRBC

The CSRD requires companies to report on sustainability in their own organisations and in their supply chains. Many business value chains are international, and that is where the greatest impacts on human rights, working conditions and the environment often occur. This is why reporting on International Responsible Business Conduct (IRBC) is an important part of the legislation. The CSRD also explicitly states that companies should use the UN Guiding Principles and the OECD Guidelines in their materiality analysis, which also provides a framework to get off to a good start.

A company builds its future by making its vision of sustainability and its ambitions for the short, medium and long term transparent and achievable. The SER supports this by bringing companies, trade unions, NGOs and government together to share knowledge and implement projects, for example through the IRBC agreements. Read more about the SER and IRBC.

More information

Do you have any questions about the CSRD or the ESRS? Please contact Fleur Meerman at f.meerman@ser.nl.