How is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) playing out in practice and what lessons can be learned? Listen to Frank Bold’s own Sustainability Researcher Lorena Bisignano, and Filip Gregor, Head of Responsible Companies and member of EFRAG’s SRB.
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As the Omnibus I package narrows the CSRD's scope and simplifies the ESRS, more responsibility falls on companies to report with a genuine commitment to show progress.
The stakes extend well beyond compliance. The sustainability transition is fundamentally an industrial and innovation challenge, and Europe's position in it is uncertain. As the United States retrenches from climate commitments and China accelerates its dominance in clean technology, the EU's competitiveness, energy security, and geopolitical influence increasingly depend on whether European companies are treating sustainability as a strategic priority.
In this episode of the Frankly Speaking podcast, Richard Howitt was joined by Frank Bold researcher Lorena Bisignano and Head of Responsible Companies and member of EFRAG SRB, Filip Gregor. They co-authored the second annual study of corporate sustainability reporting: “Delivering on Sustainability: Evidence from the second year of CSRD implementation”. The research analysed the 2025 reports of 100 large EU companies that disclose sustainability information under the CSRD. It assessed how these companies address critical sustainability challenges in their strategy, focusing on what they report on climate, double materiality assessment, due diligence, actions and metrics, and governance.
Together they reveal what is improving, where gaps in strategy still remain and their advice for wave 2 companies starting to prepare for their sustainability reporting journey. You’ll also hear more about:
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The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) wants to do for social issues what the TCFD did for climate a decade ago: harness capital markets to drive corporate action, this time on inequality and people-related risk.
What’s the track record of German companies implementing the LkSG? Listen to Sarah Hechler, previously Social Project Manager at the UN Global Compact Netzwerk Deutschland, and Christopher Bayer, Senior Researcher on the study and Principal Investigator at Development International
Are US companies retreating from or respecting human rights? Listen to Bennett Freeman, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Chloe Cole, Senior Researcher in US Business and Human Rights at the Business and Human Rights Centre
