Friday

29th Sep 2023

EU confirms watering-down of new corporate reporting rules

  • EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in March pledged to reduce reporting requirements on businesses by 25 percent (Photo: European Union 2023 - Source : EP)
Listen to article

The EU Commission this week published new environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting rules — confirming earlier watered-down requirements.

In June, the commission published draft rules that will cover some 50,000 EU companies and are meant to improve their disclosures on 12 standards — also covering workforce-related issues such as collective bargaining and adequate pay.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

But commission president Ursula von der Leyen in March pledged to reduce reporting requirements on businesses by 25 percent, to boost competitiveness in the face of the US and Chinese clean tech competition.

The Dutch Federation of Pension Funds and other influential groups, including the European Fund and Asset Management Association (Efama), the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), as well as 93 asset managers, had called on the commission to "uphold the integrity" of the standards.

But this has not been taken into account in the final proposal from the commission. And in the final proposal, many reporting requirements that were mandatory in an earlier draft have been made voluntary. These include climate, biodiversity and transition plan reporting.

This means companies can decide themselves whether a requirement is "material" to them, which means they decide whether their activities impact nature.

Civil society organisations and investors warned that this would reduce the consistency of the reporting.

Reports will still need to be audited by private accounting firms such as KPMG and Deloitte, but critics fear this will not be enough to ensure credible reporting standards.

"Climate change and social standards are not mandatory in the final text, which unfortunately puts more reliance on the quality of assurance work," said Vincent Vandeloise, who is a senior policy officer at the financial NGO Finance Watch in a statement.

The rules will now be scrutinised by the EU Parliament and the member states who can reject the rules outright but can not amend them.

Investors baffled by watering-down of EU sustainable reporting plan

European investors are sounding the alarm over sustainable reporting rules, which they say have been weakened by the European Commission. Many reporting requirements that were mandatory in an earlier draft have been made voluntary, including climate, biodiversity and transition-plan reporting.

Von der Leyen's summer plans undisclosed, after Ukraine snub

Ukraine's president invited EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to independence celebrations end of August. Citing a busy schedule, her subordinate said 'no' in an unsent letter. Asked what is on her agenda, the commission can't say.

IEA says: Go green now, save €11 trillion later

The International Energy Agency finds that the clean energy investment needed to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius warming saves $12 trillion [€11.3 trillion] in fuel expenditure — and creates double the amount of jobs lost in fossil fuel-related industries.

Opinion

How do you make embarrassing EU documents 'disappear'?

The EU Commission's new magic formula for avoiding scrutiny is simple. You declare the documents in question to be "short-lived correspondence for a preliminary exchange of views" and thus exempt them from being logged in the official inventory.

Latest News

  1. Poland's culture of fear after three years of abortion 'ban'
  2. Time for a reset: EU regional funding needs overhauling
  3. Germany tightens police checks on Czech and Polish border
  4. EU Ombudsman warns of 'new normal' of crisis decision-making
  5. How do you make embarrassing EU documents 'disappear'?
  6. Resurgent Fico hopes for Slovak comeback at Saturday's election
  7. EU and US urge Azerbijan to allow aid access to Armenians
  8. EU warns of Russian 'mass manipulation' as elections loom

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Medical Devices Regulators Forum (IMDRF)Join regulators, industry & healthcare experts at the 24th IMDRF session, September 25-26, Berlin. Register by 20 Sept to join in person or online.
  2. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  3. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  4. International Medical Devices Regulators Forum (IMDRF)Join regulators & industry experts at the 24th IMDRF session- Berlin September 25-26. Register early for discounted hotel rates
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us