More than 90 organisations representing civil society, business, banks and investor interests, express deep concern over the misrepresentation of EU sustainability reporting as a threat to competitiveness.
Our joint statement, published on 12 December, is a response to the recent omnibus proposal announcement by EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.
The Commission has stated that scaling up sustainable finance is a major priority. Achieving that requires access to consistent and reliable information on businesses’ sustainability performance, enabling better transparency and comparability.
Sustainability reporting is a vital tool for businesses, enabling companies to manage risks, identify opportunities, and drive long-term growth. The statement highlights the flexible and proportional nature of the framework and offers practical solutions to address overcompliance challenges.
At a moment where European leaders are seeking to boost competitiveness and attract major financing to support companies’ sustainability transition, the EU sustainability reporting framework plays a key role in protecting the EU market and levelling the playing field with global players.
The statement signatories call on European and national policymakers to focus on supporting a smart and easy implementation of EU sustainability reporting standards, instead of playing ping-pong with the legal framework.
Read the full statement here: Smart implementation of EU sustainability reporting standards: make complying with rules easy
NGOs and civil society groups will only support an ambitious first set of sector-agnostic ESRS that closely builds on the EFRAG drafts adopted last November. They urge the Commission to follow EFRAG’s technical advice alongside 60+ companies and investors worth 651bn USD, and caution against making significant changes at this stage, as this would risk discrediting the process so far and undoing a good compromise.
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Frank Bold, ShareAction, Accountancy Europe, Eurosif, Finance Watch and WWF, as members of the Informal Group on Sustainable Finance, have released a joint statement on the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
