The European Commission’s proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) envisages the adoption of EU Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).
 
In this context, EFRAG was requested in a letter from Commissioner McGuinness to provide Technical Advice to the European Commission in the form of fully prepared draft standards and/or draft amendments to Sustainability Reporting Standards.
 
The proposal for a CSRD requires that EFRAG’s Technical Advice is prepared with ‘proper due process, public oversight and transparency, and with the expertise of relevant stakeholders, and it is accompanied by cost-benefit analyses that include analyses of the impacts of the Technical Advice on sustainability matters’, contributing to the delegated acts through which the ESRS will be adopted in the EU.
 
In order to meet the ambitious deadlines for submitting the first set of draft ESRS to the European Commission by November 2022 and to benefit from the longest public consultation period possible, it was critical that the public consultation on the Exposure Drafts 5 (EDs) of the first set of ESRS be launched as soon as possible.  In this context, the EFRAG SRB decided to launch the public consultation on the basis of the EDs prepared under the sole responsibility of the PTF-ESRS.
 
In this context and following the EFRAG's Due Process Procedures on EU Sustainability Reporting Standard-Stetting , which stipulate the requirements to be followed in its role as technical advisor to the European Commission in the preparation of draft ESRS or draft amendments of ESRS, the PTF-ESRS hands over its Draft ESRS for public consultation with deadline of 8 August 2022.
 
These EDs correspond to the first set of standards required under the CSRD proposal and cover the full range of sustainability matters: environment, social, governance and cross-cutting standards.
 
The EFRAG SRB and the EFRAG SR TEG will consider the EDs in parallel with the public consultation and following the handover by the PTF-ESRS. Together with the input and results from the public consultation, the EFRAG SRB supported by the EFRAG SR TEG will agree the final first set of draft ESRS to be submitted to the European Commission.