EFRAG releases study on early implementation of ESRS: Insights from Selected EU Companies for Q2 2024

On July 25, 2024, EFRAG published a study on initial findings from the early adoption of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) by selected companies („State of Play as of Q2 2024 – Implementation of ESRS: Initial Observed Practices from Selected Companies“). The objective of this study is to illustrate preliminary practices related to the implementation of the ESRS based on interviews with 28 large European companies from eight sectors. The study focused on four areas particularly relevant to the implementation of ESRS: Materiality assessment, Value Chain, Gap analysis on datapoints, ESG reporting organisational approach.

As EFRAG emphasizes, due to the selection of the 28 companies (exclusively large companies with possibly higher level of maturity and resources in applying ESRS, split between non-financial and financial enterprises), the study cannot be representative of the approach of all enterprises applying ESRS. While the illustration of the preliminary practices is more of a snapshot, it is helpful insight into the status of the ESRS implementation and the associated challenges.

The DRSC’s short survey on the status and results of the materiality analysis in accordance with the ESRS among the DAX 40 companies also served this purpose. 34 of the DAX 40 companies participated in the survey. The results were published on July 12, 2024 and, among other, lay out which ESRS and sustainability matters are material to these enterprises at this point in time.