ESRS under the microscope

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) operates a statistics and reporting portal for sustainability reports published in 2025 using the ESRS. The accompanying report provides insight into CSRD reporting practices to date and can therefore also give supervisory boards pointers on potential areas for improvement for the next reporting season.

The new EFRG portal provides access to an archive of 656 analyzed ESRS sustainability statements published in 2025 and collected between January 1 and April 20, as well as a statistics dashboard. The portal is supplemented by the "State of Play 2025" report, which summarizes the statistics and highlights key findings.

The analysis shows that many companies have already made significant progress, but that the development of consistent and comparable reporting is still in its infancy. Key findings of the study include:

• Materiality coverage: Only 10% of companies have identified all 10 ESRS thematic standards as material. Climate change (E1), own workforce (S1), and business conduct (G1) were the most frequently cited.
• Gaps in stakeholder engagement: 97% involved internal stakeholders in the materiality assessment, but engagement with broader societal stakeholders remains rare.
• Transition plans: 55% of companies presented a climate protection plan, but the approaches and formats vary.
• Scope and length of reporting: Sustainability reports vary in length (averaging between 70 and over 200 pages, depending on the country), with financial institutions submitting longer reports on average.
• Underrepresented topics: Biodiversity and internal CO2 pricing have only been disclosed to a limited extent so far. Human rights incidents are also rarely reported.

The report is intended to support EFRAG in simplifying the ESRS, which it is seeking to achieve under the European Commission's mandate in connection with the  Omnibus Proposal.

The ESRS statistics and reporting portal can be accessed here. The "State of Play 2025" report can be viewed here (in English).