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Earlier this month, the European Commission has adopted the delegated act revising the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), completing another step in the implementation of the Omnibus I simplification package for sustainability reporting. Alongside the revised ESRS, the Commission also adopted a voluntary sustainability reporting standard for companies outside the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

The delegated acts will now be scrutinised by the European Parliament and the Council for two months (extendable by a further two months). Once the scrutiny period has concluded, the revised standards will apply to financial years beginning on or after 01 January 2027, while companies may choose to apply them voluntarily for the 2026 financial year.

The revised ESRS are intended to complement the Omnibus I package, which already narrowed the scope of the CSRD and sought to reduce reporting obligations for companies. The updated standards reduce the number of mandatory disclosure datapoints by more than 60%, introduce greater flexibility for value-chain reporting, and simplified several reporting requirements, while maintaining the overall objectives of the CSRD.

Perhaps the most significant change is not the reduction in datapoints, but the stronger emphasis placed on double materiality. Rather than reporting against every sustainability topic, companies are expected to determine which environmental, social, and governance issues are material from both an impact perspective (how the company affects people and the environment) and a financial perspective (how sustainability issues affect the company’s performance and resilience). Only those topics identified as material require detailed reporting, provided the assessment and underlying methodology are properly documented.

For the freight transport and logistics sector, this represents a more proportionate approach to sustainability reporting. While many SMEs remain outside the direct scope of the CSRD, sustainability reporting requirements continue to cascade through supply chains as larger customers request ESG information from their logistics providers. Over recent years, CLECAT has highlighted the importance of ensuring that reporting obligations remain practical and that transport emissions are measured using harmonised methodologies such as ISO 14083 to avoid unnecessary administrative burden and inconsistent reporting across the logistics chain.

The revised ESRS therefore shift the focus away from a compliance-driven “checklist” approach towards reporting information that is genuinely relevant to investors and other users, while reducing unnecessary reporting costs for businesses.