Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) | New requirements and implementation in practice

On 26 February 2025, the European Commission presented a proposal to streamline sustainability reporting requirements due to political headwinds from various EU member states. The aim is to reduce the number of companies required to report, delay initial reporting for certain companies by two years and reduce the scope of the ESRS. Read more in our ESG Insights special newsletter - February 2025.

The EU Commission has also announced the development of a voluntary sustainability standard based on the existing VSME standard. This is intended to enable companies that are no longer subject to CSRD reporting requirements under the Omnibus proposal to be prepared for any requests for ESG-related data without having to answer a multitude of individual questionnaires. We would be happy to send you the recording of our VSME webinar held in April 2025.

Do you need support with your sustainability management? Then talk to our experts.

The first companies will already have to report in accordance with the CSRD in 2025 for the financial year 2024 if they are already subject to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). In the following year, large companies will also be required to report in accordance with the CSRD, irrespective of their capital market orientation, if they meet two of the three criteria below. This will increase the number of users many times over.

The CSRD is also accompanied by a new materiality methodology. According to this, companies must consider both, impacts of their business activities on the economy, environment and society as well as financial impacts of sustainability aspects on business activities in their analysis and subsequent reporting. But data management also poses major challenges for companies, as the number of data points to be published is growing significantly compared to today.

In order to be able to meet the requirements of the future reporting obligation, some preparation is therefore necessary. This raises many questions for companies: What requirements does the EU place on us as a company? What are the CSRD and the ESRS all about? What's the deal with the mandatory materiality analysis? What processes, structures and resources do I need internally? And above all: What are the concrete steps that I, as a company, need to take and when do I need to start at the latest?

We therefore held a webinar for our customers and partners in which we bridged the gap from theory to practice and explained how they can approach sustainability reporting in accordance with the new CSRD directive in their company.

Would you like to learn how to approach CSRD in a practical way? You are welcome to request the presentation as well as the recording of our CSRD webinar free of charge by e-mail (German only).

You will also find a short follow-up on this in our "Focal Point" of July 4, 2023.