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The publication of various sustainability reports will soon begin. March is the month in which information on actions taken by companies and financial institutions for the benefit of society and the environment will gradually appear. Such reports can be made available under various names, such as sustainability reports, integrated reports, non-financial disclosures, EU Taxonomy disclosures. The plethora of such reports is no accident. It involves increasing formal requirements for companies and banks to provide the public with information about their operations. At the EU level, reporting is regulated by a number of pieces of legislation, such as the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), the Taxonomy’s Delegated Regulation on Disclosures, or the Prudential Requirements Regulation for Credit Institutions and Investment Firms (CRR), which applies to banks. The CSRD Directive, which we wrote about in earlier issues of Water Issues, will also soon take effect.
Such reports offer a range of interesting information about companies. These include data on greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, environmental initiatives, volunteering, among others. In addition to presenting data, the reports describe the company’s adopted policies and strategies in the area of so-called ESG (Environment, Society, Corporate Governance). By this increasingly popular buzzword, we mean sustainability activities in a broad sense, encompassing both compliance and green and ethical business conduct.
Each year, more and more companies will have to submit their reports. Some are already voluntarily publishing sustainability information, although they don’t have to. The reports, by design, are intended to provide the public with a real assessment of the actions taken and the pro-environmental activities of companies and banks. The publication at least once a year of information on initiatives implemented, issue data, as well as declared future goals and activities, is intended to prevent customers from being misled. It is a way to combat greenwashing. We wrote about the significance of this problem, which is currently under the magnifying glass of the OCCP, in the previous issue.
