CSRD: European Sustainability Reporting Standards faced a number of challenges but survived the scrutiny period

The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) faced a number of challenges:

• Firstly, certain elements in the European Parliament attempted to block the first set of (sector agnostic) ESRS – which failed in a vote in the plenary on Wednesday, 18 October 2023. For more information, see our blog post.
• Secondly, the Commission has published a proposal to delay the publication of the next two sets of ESRS by two years – one set deals with the sector-specific ESRS and the other set deals with the ESRS to be applied by non-EU companies that fall within the scope of the CSRD. For more information, see our blog post.
• Thirdly, the Commission has adopted a Delegated Directive amending the Accounting Directive to adjust the monetary size criteria (balance sheet and net turnover) for micro, small, medium-sized and large companies by 25% to account for inflation, which will reduce the number of companies falling within scope of the CSRD. For more information, see our blog post.

Notwithstanding all this, it looks likely that the first set of ESRS will come into force as expected before the end of this year. 

EFRAG has published a press release confirming the end of the ESRS scrutiny period on 21 October 2023 with no objections or delays. 

We expect the ESRS Delegated Act to be published in the Official Journal of the EU soon. It will start to apply from 1 January 2024.