CSRD and ESRS

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is the regulation that requires large companies and listed companies in the EU to disclose information on their ESG impacts. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) are the detailed reporting standards that companies must follow to comply with the CSRD.

Companies (starting 2025) must digitally disclose and report on their sustainability impacts, risks, and opportunities (IROs). This covers the entire relevant/material topics across ESG aspects and involves classifying activities, assessing IROs, and disclosing relevant information. Typically, the first step is to undertake a double materiality assessment to identify material ESG topics across the value chain engaging with all relevant key stakeholders.

The ESRS comprises of 12 different standards across General (2), Environment (5), Social (4) and Governance (1), and 82 reporting requirements, leading to 500 KPIs, with 10000+ underlying data points. The reported information must be assured to a ‘limited’ level by an independent party, with ‘reasonable’ assurance by 2028 and must be reported via the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF), which involves tagging data.

We can help you with this, and will do so with our 4-step approach:

Business context - strategy, finances, customers, goods/services, employees, value chain and stakeholder mapping to develop a business map and determine priorities, risk appetite, market landscape, ambition of sustainability and EU Taxonomy assessment.
Double materiality assessment - as per ESRS to filter through a mix of surveys, focus groups and workshops. Findings analysed with scale and scope defined.
Gap analysis - Future-back approach where core problem is defined, risks and opportunities identified and ‘art of the possible’ approach aligned to business strategy with governance, capability and data assessment conducted and projects scoped.
Implement and report - priorities and owners of key actions assigned and timeframe agreed (E.g. GHG Accounting year 1, decarbonisation plan year 2, TCFD year 3) with vision, alignment and guidance to meet compliance requirements, smooth financial planning and costs minimised.