The German Investment Funds Association (BVI) has released a statement regarding the draft of the first set of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRSs). The draft, which was developed under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) with advice from the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), has just gone through a public consultation period that closed on 7 July 2023.
In its statement, the BVI calls the draft “a disservice to sustainability reporting”. The main point of contention for the association is that instead of being mandatory, many details of reporting could be subjected to materiality assessment by the reporting companies. Such reporting goes against the requirements of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), says the BVI.
The current draft could thus “result in asset managers not getting all necessary information from companies that they need for their own reporting obligations” and risk “undermining the goals of other EU initiatives for sustainable finance”.
