The latest directive to cause commotion for practically all organizations operating in the EU area was GDPR – a mere tidal wave compared to the tsunami that’s coming next. CSRD, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive will bring together financial data, ESG information and assurance – and pose more than ordinary requirements for data management as well.

New Reporting Requirements Set by the EU

CSRD is designed to provide a company’s stakeholders an access to information relevant regarding risks related to environmental and other sustainability issues. Large companies and listed SMEs will have to apply the new rules for the first time in 2024 and publish their reports in 2025. Smaller listed companies will be impacted by 2026. So, the deadline is approaching, and activities should be well on the way.  

What Is Needed to Comply?

Most customers have found that many software companies and system integrators will offer their own sustainability or ESG solutions that help to record and report some of the CSRD requirements. In general, and without evaluating these tools, it can be said that they all require raw data to be prepared for them somehow. In short, the information delivered by the CSRD’s order is based on primary data often collected for other purposes, stored in various locations acting as a variety of data sources.

Most customers may have noticed that many details regarding the requirements set by the European Commission are still to be finalized. The political decision-making process may impose adjustments at almost any time. What this means is that there is great demand for flexibility and agility to make changes in the data preparation.

So, in short, there is a legal requirement for delivering predetermined reporting based on raw data from various sources, and time is of the essence on delivering on this requirement. Sounds like a job for a data platform accelerator!

We will discuss the solution of how to approach this dilemma in our next week’s blog.