Another committee?

On 10 July 2025, the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) published its draft bill on the implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). A legislative process on this issue had already been initiated in the previous legislative period, but was not completed. The new draft largely builds on this, but also contains new elements, such as the dates of initial application and the formation of committees within the supervisory board.

The draft bill stipulates that large public-interest companies with more than 1,000 employees will be required to prepare a sustainability report for the first time for the 2025 financial year. Following on from the EU Commission's "Omnibus Initiative", all other companies that are fundamentally subject to reporting requirements (the "second and third waves" and companies in the first wave with 501 to 1,000 employees) will only have to prepare a sustainability report from 2027 or 2028.

According to the draft, the provisions already planned in the previous legislative procedure will apply to the consideration of the sustainability report by the executive bodies: The management board is responsible for preparing the sustainability report as part of the management report. The supervisory board must review the report accordingly.

According to the draft bill, the supervisory board is to be supported either by the audit committee or by a separate "sustainability audit committee". The latter appears in the current draft bill for the first time and would be subject to the same requirements as the audit committee. According to the BMJV, this is intended to achieve an efficient division of tasks within the supervisory board and avoid duplication of work – especially if the sustainability auditor and the auditor are not the same person.

With regard to the content of the sustainability report, the new draft law also provides for a largely 1:1 implementation of the CSRD in its current version. The draft does not yet address the EU Commission's ongoing considerations regarding simplifications to the content.

The current draft bill can be found here.