Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis already announced in January that following the publication of the Green Deal and the initiation of the revision of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), he would invite EFRAG to “undertake preparatory work for the elaboration of possible EU non-financial reporting standards”.
This week, EFRAG -an accountancy advisory body set up by the EU Commission- has received the official request to establish a multi-stakeholder Project Task Force to produce a report by October 2020 and deliver its final recommendations in early 2021. The role of these standards would still need to be proposed and approved by the EU Commission, the Council and the EU Parliament during the reform process of the EU NFRD. However, Dombrovskis wishes to start this work to enable a swift implementation of the standards as soon as co-regulators reach an agreement.
Filip Gregor, Head of Responsible Companies at Frank Bold and member of the EFRAG European Reporting Lab, is leading the Alliance for Corporate Transparency. Earlier this year, this initiative presented the results of the largest research on companies’ sustainability disclosures, which clearly put in evidence the need to specify and develop the reporting requirements in the Directive and develop mandatory sector-specific standards.
In response to this recent announcement, Mr Gregor said:
“The creation of EU standards on corporate sustainability reporting is an indispensable step to ensure that companies disclose comparable and decision-useful information. The reform of the NFR Directive and the development of standards hold the key to achieve the objectives marked in the European Green Deal. We can’t create a sustainable economy and financial system without getting the first layer right: information on companies’ sustainability risks and impacts.
You can find further details about this announcement here. More information about the research carried out by the Alliance for Corporate Transparency on 1000 European companies here and a joint NGO statement supporting the EU Commission plans here.
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In December Frank Bold team co-organised a meeting of NGOs and representatives of the Member States of the European Union. The all-day meeting in Brussels was prepared in cooperation with our colleagues from European Environmental Bureau and Client Earth.
Thirty thousand people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region face a loss of access to drinking water due to the planned expansion of the Turów coal mine. This mine is planned to newly stretch outwards to just 150 meters from the Czech border and downwards to a depth below the bottom of the Baltic. The resulting drainage of Czech underground water is not just a threat to citizens; the drying out of the area would destroy entire local ecosystems and cause significant agricultural damage. A further increase to dust and noise levels is a threat as well. Furthermore, the end date for mining is to be delayed from 2020 out to 2044.
The threatened loss of drinking water for tens of thousands of people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region has earned the notice of Politico, a Brussels-based news site. Politico reported on the plans for the expansion of the Turów brown coal mine in Poland, near the Czech/German/Polish border.
