Compliance Briefing — July 31, 2023

Executive briefing: On July 31, 2023, the European Commission adopted the Delegated Act establishing the first set of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The standards introduce sector-agnostic disclosure requirements covering governance, strategy, impacts, risks, and metrics across environmental, social, and governance topics.

Immediate compliance priorities

Scope diagnostics. Determine which entities enter CSRD scope for FY2024 reporting and map ESRS cross-cutting and topical standards to existing disclosures.
Double materiality. Launch documented materiality assessments, including stakeholder engagement, to justify disclosure scoping decisions.
Data architecture. Align data owners, collection cycles, and assurance-ready evidence for climate, workforce, value-chain, and governance metrics demanded by the ESRS.

Control alignment

Governance. Assign board-level oversight and management responsibilities for sustainability reporting, including audit committee supervision and internal control integration.
Risk management. Integrate ESRS-aligned sustainability risks into enterprise risk management, scenario analysis, and resilience planning.
Assurance. Coordinate with statutory auditors on limited assurance procedures and control testing over sustainability information.

Enablement moves

Build ESRS reporting matrices that link each disclosure requirement to responsible teams, KPIs, and evidence repositories.
Deploy workflow tools to capture value-chain data, including supplier surveys and contract clauses addressing data quality.
Monitor forthcoming sector-specific ESRS and guidance from EFRAG to refine implementation roadmaps.

Sources

Zeph Tech supports sustainability, finance, and audit teams with double-materiality assessments, control design, and workflow integration for ESRS compliance.