Sustainability is becoming increasingly important for companies. More and more companies are recording their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and carbon footprint as part of their reporting obligations or on their own initiative. With the new EU directive Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the CSRD reporting obligation will soon come into force for many more EU companies.
A comprehensive presentation of sustainability information through accurate data collection and integration for tools such as BI and reporting is therefore becoming increasingly important.
CSRD sustainability report: Mandatory for EU companies from 2025
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is an EU directive on sustainability reporting that obliges companies to disclose their environmental and social impacts and their influence on their business. From January 2025, the directive will come into force for many companies that were not previously covered by the EU’s old CSR Directive.
Who is affected by the CSRD reporting obligation?
Large corporations and commercial partnerships must prepare sustainability reports from 2025, regardless of whether they are capital market-oriented or not. Companies with at least 250 employees, a balance sheet total of 20 million euros and/or net sales of 40 million euros are affected, including, for example, the automotive industry and logistics companies, energy suppliers, consumer goods and retailers.
From 2024, small and medium-sized capital market-oriented companies with 10 or more employees will be obliged to publish sustainability reports. From 2026, the sustainability report obligation in Germany and other EU countries will also apply to almost all other companies of public interest, with the exception of very small companies.
What are the reasons for the CSRD sustainability reporting obligation?
The main reasons for the CSRD reporting obligation on sustainability are:
- Transparency: The EU wants to create more clarity about the environmental and climate impact of companies.
- Climate change: Companies should be encouraged to reduce emissions through reporting.
- Harmonisation: The CSRD is intended to ensure uniform sustainability reporting in the EU.
- Risk management: Climate risks should be better managed through disclosure.
What does this mean for companies in terms of reporting efforts?
With the introduction of the CSRD, the number of companies that are obliged by the EU directive to produce a sustainability report will roughly triple, from around 12,000 to around 49,000. In Germany, more than 15,000 companies will soon be affected by the sustainability reporting obligation, up from just under 500 to date.
According to a PwC study, 61% of companies already collect KPIs that are relevant to CSRD. At the same time, 64% of companies find the technical complexity challenging. More than half (58%) of the companies surveyed want to rely on external support for CSRD implementation.
Facilitating CSRD reporting with data integration & BI
Accurate data collection and integration are critical for sustainability reporting and analysing ESG performance and carbon footprints. The development of a digital solution that bundles sustainability information in a compact form can provide a remedy for the usually complex data management.
IT experts can centralise, simplify and visualise existing data silos from different areas of the company in a single source of truth (SSOT). Business intelligence (BI) technologies such as Tableau are a key option for integrating and visualising sustainability data:
- On the one hand, data from areas that directly influence business-related CO2 emissions (e.g. production and transport information) can be prepared in BI dashboards.
- On the other hand, indirect CO2 influences such as the electricity and water consumption of office buildings can also be included in automatically generated sustainability indicators.
- Existing sustainability-related data can be automatically compared with specific CO2 guideline values and evaluated accordingly.
Find out more about the possibilities: Sustainability through digitalisation: Reducing CO2 emissions & conserving resources made easy!
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For example, COCUS has optimised the carbon footprint of an FMCG company by making data-based decisions along the global supply chain. BI dashboards can be used to compare means of transport in terms of their sustainability and identify outliers. Learn more
Sustainability Report: Facilitate reporting with digital solutions
Companies that want to reduce their manual reporting efforts and the error-proneness of their processes can utilise the increased visibility of sustainability information to meet required reporting standards efficiently and accurately. In addition, it can provide a data-based decision-making basis for sustainability issues. As an IT solution provider, we can develop a customised solution for your company to efficiently record, process and report your carbon footprint from 2025.
