ESRS data points

The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which must be followed to meet the requirements of the CSRD, span over 250 pages. The standards contain more than a thousand so-called data points for reporting.

It’s like a very long and complicated questionnaire. The answers to the questions can be numbers, tables with figures, text sections, yes-no questions, or a combination of these.

When answering the data points, there are references to other parts of the document, for example, to explain how to report or to provide explanations of difficult terms. There are also references to other independent documents, such as how to calculate carbon emissions in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards.

When you sit down with this document in front of you, it feels like an overwhelming and very demotivating task to figure out what needs to be done and where to start.

EU’s monster Excel

The EU’s working group for corporate reporting, EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group), has developed an Excel template where all the data points are listed. It helps provide an overview and clarifies which headings in the standards are actual data points to report on.

EFRAGs Excel with all data points in ESRS

The data points are organised with one tab per topic (ESRS E1 Climate Change, ESRS E2 Pollution… etc.).

In practice, the Excel sheet can be used to explore data points and make notes. These notes can be about whether certain data points are material, whether the information exists, and to what extent the information covers the entire business. Some use it to note who is responsible for different data points. Some companies create different versions of the Excel sheet to manage different parts of the business that various teams and individuals are responsible for.

What is mandatory to report

The basic principle is that the company should report on what is material to report — for those who are affected by or have an interest in the information. This is quite reasonable!

What is considered material is determined by analyzing:

(1) The environmental, social, or ethical impacts that the company’s activities may have, and

(2) The financial risks related to sustainability aspects that the company faces.

Some parts are always mandatory, regardless of the materiality assessment. These are the data points under ESRS 2, which deal with general disclosures about the company, and the data points describing how the materiality assessment was conducted for the different topic areas, known as IRO-1. These are found in the topic areas E1 (Climate), E2 (Pollution), E3 (Water), E4 (Biodiversity), E5 (Resources), and G1 (Ethics).

The mandatory topical Disclosure Requirements, IRO-1, where all data points shall be reported on.

Application requirements - to further explain - but not only…

For each section in the ESRS, there are so-called application requirements. These are linked to the data points and help clarify what should be written and considered. The tricky part is that some application requirements are not just a support — they function as their own data points that must be reported.

Managing the data points in The Cards

In The Cards, all data points are sorted into cards representing the 104 disclosure requirements of the ESRS.

The data points in The Cards are organised into cards that assist you with the entire reporting process.

You use the cards to get an overview of everything that needs to be reported.

Cards that are not material are noted and sorted out.

Co-worker Lisa is responsible for some cards, and Lennart for others.

The teams collaborate on the cards, make notes, and add information as they go.

Documents and other materials that verify what is written in the annual report are uploaded to the cards, linked to each data point.

A built-in, customized AI assistant helps explain, provide advice, and assist with translating texts that multilingual teams produce—all connected to the cards and the specific data points.

Once all the data points are managed, the report is complete and ready to be exported to the annual report.

Not too bad!