EFRAG is pleased to issue today its Study: ‘State of play as of Q2 2024 | Implementation of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS): Initial Practices from Selected Companies’.

The objective of this study is to illustrate preliminary practices related to the implementation of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). The implementation of the ESRS is nascent and thus the results of this study should be viewed as preliminary and intermediary snapshots rather than indicative of mature practices.  The intent of this study is to provide an overview  of emerging practices at a certain stage in the implementation journey of the CSRD and ESRS with a view to highlight the identified related challenges.

The conclusions of the study are based on interviews of 28 large EU headquartered undertakings across eight sectors split between financial and non-financial enterprises. These companies were selected based on their size, and therefore possible higher level of maturity and resources in applying the ESRS. The emerging practices  were analysed against four focus areas particularly relevant to the implementation of ESRS: Materiality assessment, Value Chain, Gap analysis on datapoints, ESG reporting organisational approach.

The study intentionally focuses on larger undertakings and thus is not representative of the diverse mix of companies that will apply the ESRS. For subsequent years, we  will consider  an annual “State of play” study taking stock of a larger number of undertakings and also of sustainability statements effectively prepared in accordance with ESRS.

This study was developed with the assistance of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) whom we warmly thank.