ESRS Reporting Standards: A Practical Overview
What the European Sustainability Reporting Standards require, how they are structured, and what climate disclosures companies need to prepare.
The ESRS are the mandatory reporting standards under the CSRD. They define exactly what companies must disclose about environmental, social, and governance impacts.
ESRS Structure
Cross-cutting: ESRS 1 (general requirements) and ESRS 2 (general disclosures) apply to all companies.
Environmental: E1 Climate change, E2 Pollution, E3 Water, E4 Biodiversity, E5 Circular economy.
Social: S1–S4 covering workforce, value chain workers, communities, consumers.
Governance: G1 Business conduct.
ESRS E1: Climate Change
Requires: transition plan, GHG emissions (Scope 1/2/3), energy consumption, emission intensity, reduction targets, and carbon credit disclosures.
Preparing for ESRS
- Conduct double materiality assessment
- Gap analysis against ESRS disclosures
- Build data pipelines for each required metric
- Establish governance and responsibilities
- Prepare for assurance from day one
- Plan XBRL tagging for machine-readable output