| Update: August 5, 2024
🕓 Reading time 13 minutes

1. Who is affected by the CSRD Directive
overview
At the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) This is an EU directive on sustainability reporting in companies according to clearly defined standards. Depending on the company size, reporting of non-financial indicators will also include CO2 emissions starting in the 2024 reporting year.2-Corporate emissions.
The CSRD Directive is January 5 It will come into force in 2023. It is currently being implemented by the EU member states, including Germany. implemented into national law.
The CSRD replaces the previously applicable Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). The NFRD is an existing EU sustainability reporting requirement from 2014, which already applies to companies with over 500 employees. With the development of the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the requirements for the information to be reported and the target audience for mandatory corporate reporting are now being significantly expanded.
The two fundamental innovations are:
1. Reporting must be included in the management report.
2. It must be produced according to clearly defined EU standards, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). take place.
The criteria for affected companies
Many of the more than 50,000 companies affected across Europe have addressed the issue of CO2Key figures are not yet on the radar. However, implementation will be mandatory for companies already subject to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) starting in the 2024 reporting year. The directive will come into force for large companies in the 2025 reporting year:
According to Section 267 Paragraph 3 of the German Commercial Code (HGB), companies are classified as “large” if they meet two out of three of the following criteria:
2. Innovations in sustainability reporting
Scope 1, 2 and 3 emission figures required
The new EU directive CSRD significantly expands the reporting obligations of European companies in the area of non-financial key figures.
The ESRS E1 Climate Change leads the ESRS theme-specific standards. Like all theme-specific standards, it is subject to Materiality analysis. However, it is expected that the ESRS E1 Climate Change will be applied to almost every company on the main reporting topics since virtually every economic activity involves the emission of greenhouse gases.
It obliges companies to publish in their annual report greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF). The CCF, also known as CO2-balance sheet, serves to determine the annual responsible Greenhouse gas emissions beyond Scope 1, 2 and 3 in the company and the identification of emission hotspots for the responsible use of the climate protection budget.
The CO2-Key figures must be defined according to the specifications of the EFRAG Standards ESRS E1 Climate Change collected and processed. A self-generated rough approximation of one's own company emissions is not sufficient.

Uniform standards and presentation in the annual financial statements for CSRD reporting
Until now, companies were free to choose how to publish ESG information. One of the implications of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is that it will now be mandatory to publish ESG information in the management report as part of the annual financial statements.
At the same time, the development of binding European Reporting Standards (ESRS) across the three areas of environment, social and governance. The goal of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). is to define the sustainability information that companies must report under the CSRD. The first set of ESRS was adopted on 31.07.23.
The decision, which ESRS in the areas of environment, social affairs and governance, is based on a individual materiality analysis for each company. This analysis forms the basis for decisions in all relevant areas of reporting. It is voluntary to provide an explanation as to why certain topics are considered immaterial. However, there is a special requirement for ESRS E1: If ESRS E1 Climate Change is not considered material for a company, the conclusions of the materiality assessment must be explained in detail to justify the exclusion.
Audit of compliance with sustainability reporting
For approximately 50,000 companies in Europe, the CSRD requires a new chapter containing the required information to be added to the annual report. This chapter must contain an overview of the CSRD's defined non-financial key performance indicators in the correct format.
The CSRD stipulates an obligation for an external audit of the information. The audit is carried out by the auditor. However, an auditor cannot and may not override the collection of CO2Key performance indicators. Due to the strict audit criteria, the auditor relies on the companies' verified emissions data. Management, the executive board, and the supervisory board are expressly responsible for compliance with the CSRD.
The audit will initially be carried out with limited assurance and will be expanded over time to reasonable assurance.
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