On July 31, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, published Exposure Drafts of the amended set of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (Draft Revised ESRS), and launched a public consultation seeking further feedback from stakeholders by September 29, 2025. The revision of the ESRS is one of the key simplification goals of the Omnibus proposal. EFRAG’s efforts revolved around the following levers:
- Simplification and streamlining of the Double Materiality Assessment (DMA).
- Enhanced readability/conciseness of the sustainability statements and better integration with corporate reporting as a whole.
- Modification of the relationship between minimum disclosure requirements (MDRs) and topical standards, resulting in a substantial reduction of datapoints (mainly in topical standards).
- Improved understandability, clarity and accessibility of the ESRS.
- Introduction of other suggested burden-reduction reliefs.
- Enhanced interoperability with other disclosure standards.
EFRAG explained that the simplification levers above were a result of careful consideration of stakeholder feedback, but it also noted that some of the stakeholder suggestions would go beyond EFRAG’s mandate, hence have not been addressed in the Exposure Draft.
Following the consultation, EFRAG must deliver the final technical advice on the revised ESRS to the EU Commission by November 30, 2025.
Recommendation on voluntary sustainability reporting standards for non-listed small and medium sized companies
On July 30, 2025, the EU Commission adopted a recommendation for non-listed SMEs and micro-companies that wish to voluntarily report sustainability information to do so in accordance with voluntary sustainability reporting standards for small and medium-sized companies (VSME) developed by EFRAG. In parallel, the EU Commission called on companies subject to CSRD to limit any information requests to SMEs in their value chains to information set out in the VSME.Continue Reading European Sustainability Reporting Standards: Summer Update