Even as the timeline for reporting under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive gets pushed back and the scope of CSRD requirements gets scaled back, an abundance of companies aren’t pushing back from the table when it comes to their commitment to creating a sustainable business model.
Rules or no rules, many still see value in sustainability information.
Among 496 companies that have reported or plan to report under the CSRD or the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB’s) framework, 40% said they will report under the original CSRD timeline as opposed to postponing for two years as the EU’s “stop the clock” directive allows.
Why?
“Companies are using this information to inform business decisions,” wrote the authors of PwC’s inaugural Global Sustainability Reporting Survey. “Those seeing the most value are more likely to be using the insights in areas such as overall business strategy, supply chain transformation, workforce transformation, marketing, and risk management.”
Seven in 10 companies that have already reported under the CSRD or ISSB frameworks said they gained significant (28%) or moderate (42%) value from doing so. Four in 10 said they plan to “stop the clock” in response to the two-year postponement of CSRD reporting, but an equal amount plan to continue reporting in what the survey’s authors called “a year in which regulators recalibrated.”
“While many jurisdictions continue to work towards ISSB adoption, the EU set out to reduce the number of organisations within scope of the CSRD and, for those that remain, simplify and defer reporting requirements,” the report said. “Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate-related financial disclosure regulations remain in flux.”
Among the companies continuing to report, 48% are using the data gathered to a large or very large extent to comply with other regulations, 38% are using it to inform overall business strategy, and 38% are using it for risk management.
And, regardless of the regulators:
- More than half the companies said external and internal pressure to provide sustainability information has increased over the last year (just 7% said it decreased).
- Nearly two-thirds said they have increased resources and senior leadership time devoted to sustainability reporting over the last year.
LEARNING RESOURCES
For more perspective and resources related to sustainability, visit the AICPA and CIMA sustainability hub.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.