European Commission publishes Sustainability Reporting Standards
On 3 July, the European Commission adopted two Delegated Acts relevant to EU Sustainability Reporting. FIEC has been actively involved in this process since early 2025, when we published the position paper “A pragmatic Omnibus Simplification Package to put the EU at the forefront of Corporate Sustainability while ensuring the Competitiveness of Businesses”.
Delegated Act – European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)
ESRS are related to complex sustainability reporting under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The simplification law on sustainability reporting (Omnibus 1) provides that only companies with more than 1.000 employees and an annual turnover above EUR 450 million are in scope of the CSRD. The total number of reporting datapoints was reduced by 71% (-61% mandatory datapoints, -100% voluntary datapoints /base total 1.100 datapoints).
Delegated Act – Voluntary SME Standard (VSME)
The VSME is related to voluntary simplified sustainability reporting for companies that are not within the scope of the CSRD. The simplification law on sustainability reporting (Omnibus 1) establishes an effective “value-chain-cap”. As a result, SMEs will be protected from information disclosure requests by their bigger business partners exceeding the elements defined by the VSME Standard.
The Delegated Acts have been submitted to the European Parliament and Member States in the Council for scrutiny. They will enter into force after this period (two months, extendable by a further two months), once they have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Access the Delegated Act on the revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) here.
Access the Delegated Act on the Voluntary SME Standard (VSME) here.
Access the FIEC Position Paper “A pragmatic Omnibus Simplification Package to put the EU at the forefront of Corporate Sustainability while ensuring the Competitiveness of Businesses” from January 2025 here.