ESG
CSRD reporting explained: what changes for companies this year
Double materiality, assurance requirements and value-chain data are reshaping corporate disclosure across the EU and beyond.
By Lena Okafor · · 7 min read · Updated
Key takeaways
- Double materiality requires reporting both impacts on the environment and financial risk.
- Disclosures now require limited assurance from an independent provider.
- Value-chain data collection is the largest practical burden for most companies.
The core change: double materiality
Traditional sustainability reporting asked how environmental issues affect a company's finances. Double materiality adds the reverse question: how the company's operations affect people and the environment. Both directions must be assessed and disclosed.
In practice this means companies run a structured materiality assessment, document the process, and explain why topics were included or excluded.
Assurance and data quality
Sustainability data now sits closer to financial reporting standards. Limited assurance requires auditable trails, defined methodologies, and consistent boundaries across reporting periods.
Companies that treated ESG data as a marketing exercise face the steepest adjustment, because assurance exposes gaps in measurement rather than in ambition.
Value chains are the hard part
Scope 3 emissions and supplier-level social data cannot be produced internally. Most reporting teams rely on a mix of supplier surveys, spend-based estimates, and industry averages, and must disclose which method was used.