A group of leading organisations in the field of sustainable finance, including Frank Bold, issued a joint statement with recommendations for the upcoming revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive*.
The current COVID-19 crisis has shown how economic, social and environmental aspects are interlinked and the need to put in place the right tools and incentives for each stakeholder from both public and private sector to play its role. The European Commission indicated in its recently published consultation on a renewed Sustainable Finance strategy that companies should prioritise key stakeholders’ long-term interest. We see the revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive as an important element of achieving this.
As a group of stakeholders with different backgrounds, but a common interest in sustainable finance, we believe the following matters are instrumental in the upcoming revision of the NFRD to make a leap forward in improving the quality, comparability and consistency of information on environmental, social and governance matters:
You can read the full statement, which includes further details for each of the above recommendations below.
*The group is formed by ACCA, Accountancy Europe, Association of German Banks (BdB), CDSB, EFAMA, Frank Bold, IIGCC, Schroders, ShareAction, WWF who came together in an informal platform for collaboration and discussion on crucial EU policy issues on sustainability. The statement was also supported by BNP Paribas AM and Candriam (while not being part of the informal group itself).
The European Parliament has adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which clarifies transparency obligations for large companies operating in the EU on their sustainability impacts, risks, and opportunities. Pursuant to the CSRD, companies across all sectors will report against the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which were developed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), submitted to the European Commission and published on 22 November.
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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