EU CSRD: EFRAG publishes the ESRS Set 1 XBRL Taxonomy

On 30 August, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) published the XBRL Taxonomy for ESRS Set 1, which enables the digital tagging of ESRS statements under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), as well as the XBRL Taxonomy for Article 8 disclosures under the Taxonomy Regulation. The digital taxonomies enable the marking up ('tagging') of sustainability reporting in a machine-readable XBRL format. 

In its press release, EFRAG confirmed that they believe this XBRL taxonomy for ESRS Set 1 represents the appropriate digital transposition of the human-readable ESRS Set 1. However, in relation to Article 8 disclosure requirements under the Taxonomy Regulation, EFRAG stressed that it provided only digital and technical support to the Commission and does not have any responsibility for the content of those requirements. In contrast with the CSRD, EFRAG has not been requested to provide any advice regarding the Taxonomy Regulation. 

These digital taxonomies will be the basis for the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop relevant Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS). The final RTS will be adopted by the Commission by way of a Delegated Act, amending Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815 on the European Single Electronic Format. Until that moment, digital tagging of ESRS will not be mandatory for companies. This was also confirmed by the Commission in explanation 38 in its recent CSRD FAQs (for more information on these FAQs, see our previous blog post). In the meantime, the XBRL taxonomy can be used for testing purposes, preparatory work, and voluntary tagging of ESRS sustainability statements.

The XBRL taxonomy packages are accompanied by the “Explanatory Notes and Basis for Conclusions”, which explain the applied methodology and include illustrations of the resulting reporting in a machine-readable format.

EFRAG launched a public consultation on the XBRL taxonomy for ESRS Set 1 in February 2024. In August 2024, EFRAG published a Feedback Statement that contains a list of changes implemented following the public consultation. EFRAG included, among others, further details alongside each XBRL element to specify whether it is a mandatory (‘shall’) or voluntary (‘may’) disclosure, whether it is subject to the phase-in provisions, and whether its applicability is dependent on certain conditions (e.g., if the undertaking is active in high climate impact sectors).

For more information on the CSRD and ESRS, see our CSRD Demystified materials.