The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) proposal stipulates that EFRAG should be responsible for carrying out a due process to draft, consult and deliver EU sustainability standards for adoption by the European Commission. On 1 March, the EFRAG General Assembly appointed the members of the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board, which will be responsible for all sustainability reporting positions of EFRAG, including technical advice to the European Commission on draft EU Sustainability Reporting Standards and related amendments.
The Board is composed of European stakeholders, national organisations, and civil society. Filip Gregor, Head of the Responsible Companies Section at Frank Bold, has been appointed as one of the two NGO representatives of the EFRAG Civil Society Chapter, alongside another member of the Alliance for Corporate Transparency, David Vermijs from Shift. Joanne Houston, EU Policy Officer at Frank Bold, has been selected to be part of the Technical Expert Group recently announced.
Filip Gregor’s engagement builds on his current participation in the secretariat of Project Task Force on European sustainability reporting standards. As EFRAG progresses towards the establishment of its permanent sustainability reporting pillar alongside its existing financial one, Filip’s work on EU standards will continue as a member of the newly formed Sustainability Reporting Board, contributing to the continuity of EFRAG’s standard-setting work.
The EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board does not rely solely on broad stakeholder representation; it also ensures the adoption of well-informed positions. The EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board will take decisions after having considered the advice of the Sustainability Reporting Technical Expert Group (TEG) of EFRAG and the results of EFRAG’s due process. The EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board together with the EFRAG Financial Reporting Board will work to ensure connectivity between financial and sustainability reporting.
All of EFRAG’s draft and final sustainability reporting due process documents will be issued under the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board’s authority.
As part of the reform of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive, the European Commission plans to develop mandatory EU sustainability reporting standards. The analysis of the non-financial reports of 1000 European companies by the Alliance for Corporate Transparency has proven how companies fail to report relevant, specific and comparable information. While this is true for all sustainability matters, it is particularly exacerbated in the case of corporate impacts and risks along the supply chain.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that mining at Poland’s sprawling Turów coal mine must cease while the court processes a Czech government lawsuit against Poland for illegally operating the mine. The Polish mine pushes right up to the Czech and German borders and is depleting people’s water supplies and undercutting houses in nearby communities.
Local groups and NGOs including Frank Bold, that is very active in the process, welcomed the Czech government’s decision to file a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice against the Polish government for the illegal operation of the Turów lignite coal mine, which has been dug right up to the Czech and German borders, damaging local water supplies for nearby communities. This is the first such legal case for the Czech Republic and the first in EU’s history where one member state sues another for environmental reasons.
