Introduction to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards

Transparent and consistent sustainability reporting

Over the last two decades, reporting standards and frameworks have been developed to enable organisations to provide sustainability-related information transparently and consistently. These sets of indicators define the key elements of sustainability reporting, including how sustainability-related information should be collected and presented.

Many available standards and frameworks can be used for different environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting purposes.

European Sustainability Reporting Standards explained

You’ll learn about the European Union’s mandatory European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Topics include:

• A comprehensive overview of ESRS
• How to use the standards

You’ll also cover various ESG issues, such as:

• Climate change
• Loss of biodiversity
• Human rights.

Assessing sustainability impact

Investors can use the standards to assess the sustainability impact of the companies they may choose to invest in. The standards have been developed with other frameworks and standards to avoid duplicative reporting, such as:

• The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)
• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

The Introduction to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards bundle includes the following learning path modules:

• Introduction to cross-cutting standards under the ESRS (ESRS 1 and ESRS 2)
• Introduction to environmental standards under the ESRS (E1–E5)
• Introduction to social and governance standards under the ESRS (S1–S4 and G1)

Who Will Benefit

• Accounting professionals who provide advisory services (including ESG matters) for clients and need to advise B&I clients on how to set up procedures to scope, identify, record and manage their sustainability strategy goals
• Accounting professionals who provide assurance services that may include sustainability information or data
• Accounting and finance professionals who prepare corporate reports, including sustainability-related financial information.
• Accounting and finance professionals who recognize it is crucial to understand how to implement processes that help produce sustainability data or provide advisory services over sustainability strategies because they have a key role to play in driving sustainable strategic and operational decisions based upon data produced

Key Topics

• CSRD
• ESRS
• ESG and sustainability
• Disclosures
• Financial and impact materiality, double materiality
• Sector-agnostic and sector-specific standards
• Scenario analysis

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish reporting areas and reporting layers under the ESRS.
• Identify when entity-specific disclosures are to be used.
• Identify the difference between sector-agnostic and sector-specific standards.
• Identify the difference between financial and impact materiality, and the importance of double materiality.
• Choose metrics and targets as per ESRS 2.
• Select the best approach to reporting on risks.
• Choose the appropriate methods for a scenario analysis.
• Identify the relevant reporting areas under each environmental ESRS standard.
• Identify the sub-topics and sub-sub-topics covered by ESRS S1.
• Identify the sub-topics and elements of the ESRS G1 standard.
• Determine the difference between the ESRS G1 standard and the Governance reporting area.

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