Avoiding a missed opportunity: civil society will only support ambitious ESRS

NGOs, civil society groups will only support an ambitious first set of sector-agnostic ESRS that closely builds on the EFRAG drafts adopted last November.

ESRS are a milestone in corporate reporting towards more consistent and comparable sustainability disclosures. EFRAG’s technical advice to the European Commission provides a sound, holistic and coherent framework to achieve this objective. It was adopted without dissent by the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board, following an extensive multistakeholder process that drew on the expertise of all stakeholders.

Some organisations are now calling on the Commission to reduce the scope of the standards. We believe this would be a mistake since any further reduction in the scope, content or coverage of the ESRS would undermine the credibility of the process, the support of civil society and the development of sector-specific standards. The compromise reached by EFRAG after lengthy and sometimes difficult discussions represents a careful balance between different views and stakeholder interests.

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