Sustainability reporting
scenerosterzippiesfeds.living sets out what the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the GRI Standards, the ISSB's IFRS S1 and S2, double materiality assessment and limited assurance each involve, and how a company puts together a reporting programme that covers them.
The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive replaces the Non-Financial Reporting Directive and requires reporting against the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, phased in by company size and listing status.
The Global Reporting Initiative's modular standards are the most widely used voluntary sustainability reporting framework worldwide, organised into Universal, Sector and Topic Standards.
The International Sustainability Standards Board's IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 set out investor-focused, financially material sustainability and climate disclosures, building on the TCFD recommendations.
The process required under the ESRS for deciding which sustainability topics a company must report on, combining how the company affects the world with how sustainability affects the company.
The assurance level the CSRD currently mandates for sustainability statements, narrower than the reasonable assurance given on financial statements, with a review clause that may tighten this over time.
Building a sustainability reporting programme that stands up to CSRD, GRI or ISSB scrutiny follows a broadly consistent sequence, regardless of which standards apply.
Establish which regime applies — CSRD thresholds, voluntary GRI adoption, ISSB-aligned investor reporting, or more than one at once — and which reporting year each obligation starts in.
Identify impacts, risks and opportunities across operations and the value chain, and assess them against both the impact and financial lenses.
Assign ownership of each data point, document methodologies, and align sustainability data collection with existing financial reporting timetables.
Produce disclosures against the selected standards, cross-referencing ESRS, GRI and IFRS S1/S2 requirements where more than one applies.
Prepare the audit trail and internal controls an assurance provider will test under ISAE 3000 (Revised) before the statement is signed off.