18 May 2022

Negotiators must show responsibility to ensure Corporate reporting proposals are sustainable for companies of all sizes

On 19 May, the trilogue negotiators on the corporate sustainability reporting Directive meet again in the hope to find an agreement on the dossier.

As Ceemet fears that this Directive will cause a high level of administrative and financial burden on companies, the tech and industry employers sent a letter to the negotiators prior to the interinstitutional meeting to urge the co-legislators to take the needs of companies into account and cut the red tape and reduce the financial impact.

Firstly, the requirements following the CSRD will be challenging for all companies, even for the bigger ones. For smaller companies it will be practically impossible to comply with these requirements without shifting the majority of their time and resources away from their core corporate activities. Ceemet therefore calls on the co-legislators to make it voluntary for SMEs to adhere to the reporting standards.

Secondly, it is of key importance that the obligations on companies are proportionate. We therefore support the Council’s position stating that standards shall take account of the difficulties that undertakings may encounter in gathering information from actors throughout their value chain.

Finally, Ceemet underlines the importance of a realistic timeline for companies as many companies never had to do sustainability reporting before and will need some time to comply with all the proposed requirements.

Click on the attachment to read the entire letter.