Accountancy Europe welcomes the EU progress on sustainability reporting standards. The newly released Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will be instrumental to achieve the European Green Deal. The European Union (EU) will need appropriate sustainability reporting standards to comply with the CSRD and to ultimately achieve these public policy objectives. We have long supported the sustainability reporting agenda and will continue contributing our expertise to successfully implementing the CSRD. Read more in our CSRD statement.

We welcome the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) Lab Project Task Force’s proposals for a relevant and dynamic EU sustainability reporting standard setting to the European Commission (EC) from February 2021. European sustainability reporting standards need to be developed quickly to meet the ambitious EC timeline whilst being of high quality and fit for purpose to different sizes of companies.

We look forward to collaborating with the future European sustainability reporting standard setter within EFRAG. The accountancy profession’s contribution is indispensable to help ensure the development of robust and verifiable sustainability reporting standards, which enable reliable reporting, improve market transparency, and minimise greenwashing.

Since 2017, Accountancy Europe has been advocating for the collaboration, coordination and ultimately, the consolidation of different sustainability reporting initiatives. Clear cooperation mechanisms between the future EU, and any international, sustainability standard setters would:

• improve resource efficiencies
• produce timely and robust standards, within the scope of the respective initiatives
• avoid inconsistencies and duplications in reporting standards

Global reporting standards would best meet investors’ and capital markets’ needs whilst minimising the reporting burden and costs for companies. It is paramount to build on international initiatives and contribute to international convergence – the EU is well-placed to catalyse this.

To this end, we applaud EFRAG’s and the EC’s collaborative approach with leading international sustainability standard setters.