ESG reporting – whitepaper on comprehensive sustainability reporting for companies

Companies are increasingly finding themselves obliged to undertake comprehensive sustainability management reporting. This is due not only to the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), but also to various other laws and guidelines at European and national level. Our ESG whitepaper offers you an expert overview of the topic, answers your most pressing questions and highlights the advantages of professionally undertaken ESG reporting.

ESG reporting – introduction of the reporting obligation in several stages

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is a generic term for a company’s various activities concerning environmental, social standards, and corporate governance issues.

As public awareness of sustainable management continues to grow, companies are facing an increasing number of obligations in this area.

Various laws and guidelines at European and national level are now making diverse extensive reporting obligations mandatory even for classic medium-sized companies. Alongside the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the EU has also introduced a taxonomy with which it defines criteria for ecologically sustainable activities.

The CSRD is to be rolled out in multiple stages. The plan is currently that public interest entities with more than 500 employees will be required to submit a report as of the 2024 financial year. The following year, all other companies deemed large under the accounting legislation will be required to prepare ESG reports. As of 2026, the reporting obligation will then also apply to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) as classified under the accounting legislation.

At the same time, Germany has committed to a net-zero economy by 2045. The Federal Government expects companies to reduce their CO2 emissions and to provide appropriate evidence. These reports must be submitted annually and in full. However, companies should not stick simply to pure status quo reporting, but should instead implement a data-based sustainability strategy from the outset.

The question is therefore how a company is to obtain all of this data and how many staff are needed to collect and process it.

Data-based sustainability management

Effective data management is one of the basic prerequisites for successfully meeting the ESG criteria, ensuring transparency, and seizing opportunities such as competitive advantages, cost reductions, positive marketing communication, or increasing one’s attractiveness as an employer amidst these complex processes.

However, the situation at many companies is fragmented. The data is distributed across various systems and departments, and is unfortunately only infrequently available in the required quality and consistency. The effort involved in data integration is increased by diverse data sources, different data types and formats, and various definitions of and methods for measuring the sustainability KPIs. A lack of automation poses an additional obstacle.

The whitepaper shows possible solutions.