CSRD means The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which concerns the disclosure of corporate sustainability information. New rules will apply to corporate sustainability reporting. The CSRD will apply from 1st of January 2024 for large public interest entities, from 1st of January 2025 for other large reporting entities and from 1st of January 2026 for listed small and medium-sized enterprises and, on a voluntary basis, for other SMEs. In addition, non-EU companies trading within the EU will be affected by the CSRD from 1st of January 2028. The new rules aim to address shortcomings in the existing rules on non-financial disclosure.
In the changing environment of sustainability reporting, investors, partners, customers and civil society want to know more fully about corporate responsibility, the risks and opportunities posed by business activities, beyond the financial figures. In investment, the importance of sustainability has grown significantly and sustainability is becoming an important element in the pricing and availability of finance.
Sustainability issues can risk the financial performance of companies. In addition, demand for investment products with sustainability objectives is growing and regulation requires more information from investing companies. Consumers will become more aware of companies’ impacts on human rights and the environment as sustainability reporting changes.
Changing sustainability disclosure regulation means many things for companies.
Changing sustainability disclosure regulation means many things for companies. First, the scope will be extended to all large reporting companies and listed small and medium-sized enterprises. The number of companies covered by statutory sustainability reporting will increase from 10,000 to 50,000 in the EU. In Finland, around 700 companies will be covered, compared to around 100 at present.
The current regulation (Non-Financial Reporting Directive, NFRD for large listed companies) is a principle-based regulation and non-binding guidance. Companies can choose which reporting framework to report under. Under the CSRD, the company’s board of directors will be responsible for new disclosable sustainability information, which will be reported in a prescriptive format. The role of the audit committee and the importance of internal controls over disclosures will be highlighted. The link between sustainability and financial reporting is also expected to become stronger year on year. One example is the consideration of climate risks. The link between ESG (environment, social responsibility and governance) and strategy, governance and business models is not always clear.
The CSRD will make sustainability data more comparable with economic data.
The future directive (CSRD) will make sustainability data more comparable with economic data. EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) will develop standards for the Commission. There will be standardised and detailed requirements for the information provided. The data must be reliable and verifiable (limited verification).
The information is published in only one place: the annual report. ESG issues are linked to the company’s strategy, business models and governance, making them more transparent.
The Sustainability Reporting Standards specify the information that companies must disclose under the requirements of the Sustainability Reporting Directive. The reporting standards will ensure the availability of information required for sustainable finance and the reporting of comparable data. At the same time, the structure according to which this information must be reported will be specified. The standards will be published in two phases, with sustainability reporting standards for information under the FMA Regulation to be published by 30th of June 2023 and supplementary and sector-specific sustainability reporting standards by 31st of January 2024. Draft standards are now due in November 2022, at least in key respects.
The CSRD Core Principles provide a framework for sustainability reporting
The CSRD Core Principles provide the framework for sustainability reporting. There are quality requirements for the information presented, which is familiar from financial reporting. Dual materiality covers economic materiality and impact materiality. CSRD takes a broad stakeholder perspective. The scope of reporting is extended to include the impact of risks and opportunities arising from business relationships in up + down stream value chains.
The time horizons of the analysis are divided into three parts: short, medium and long. Short means less than one year, medium 1-5 years and long more than 5 years. The duty of care is an important part of reporting. It means a holistic approach to the detection, treatment and prevention of adverse effects.
A sustainability report under the Directive consists of a description of the sustainability strategy and implementation, together with performance indicators. In the report, the strategy describes the sustainability risks, opportunities and impacts relevant to the reporting company’s strategy and business model. The implementation section includes a description of how the reporting organisation manages sustainability risks, opportunities and impacts, including policies, targets, action plans and resource allocation. Performance indicators cover qualitative and quantitative indicators to compare results and progress and to assess achievement of objectives.
With NordCheck, your company can manage compliance issues comprehensively.
NordCheck helps you to manage compliance issues comprehensively. The NordCheck Regulation & Policy Management solution manages, among other things, the documentation required by standards and helps to identify and enforce regulatory requirements by setting the right control points.
Our solutions are modular, easy to deploy. They apply best practices and apply policies, roles and quality requirements familiar to users. The solutions can be flexibly adapted to your company’s policies and processes.
We are developing our solutions to meet the challenges of the future. We take timely account of future regulation and digitalisation in different compliance areas.
NordCheck patents new inventions and our visionary, innovative approach serves our customers well. Our platform is exceptionally flexible and can be easily extended to meet future regulatory requirements.