Complying with the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires closer collaboration between corporate sustainability strategists and finance teams than voluntary reporting practices.
The CSRD, which became law in January 2023, requires certain large companies to report on a variety of metrics – including emissions and anything else considered material to a particular business – starting in 2025, based on their 2024 fiscal year. its first, it will affect 50,000 European companies and about 10,000 international organizations with a strong presence in the continent’s business bloc.
That fact was on the minds of sustainability leaders making the rounds during the recent NYC Climate Week, as they balanced demands for regulated disclosures with community pressure to deliver further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
More than 23,000 companies voluntarily disclosed data on greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental metrics to CDP in 2023, a 24 percent increase from the previous year. But about 40 percent of public companies, especially those in the United States, still do not disclose their carbon footprint, estimates research firm MSCI.
CSRD will make it difficult to remain silent. “I feel like reporting and disclosure is always a smart thing for a company,” Emma Stewart, chief sustainability officer at video streaming company Netflix, told me during a Climate Week NYC interview. “This is becoming more formal and effective. CSRD happens to be the most demanding of all,” he said, pointing to other mandatory ESG and climate disclosure systems.
Netflix’s regulators and investor relations are central to the Los Gatos, California-based company’s production because they can use existing processes for data collection, verification and assurance. “My team is in a position to be a subject matter expert and data provider,” Stewart said.
Pandora dedicates a transition team
“Basically we see it as a healthy development,” said Mads Twomey-Madsen, senior vice president of communications and sustainability at Swedish jewelry company Pandora. “It’s going to require companies to provide more information about their impacts and how they’re impacted. That’s good. So, that’s positive.”
Preparedness will require dedicated resources for at least the first few years until the processes are in place, according to many sustainability leaders speaking on the issue during Climate Week NYC.
Pandora’s next report, due in February, will need to be considered. While previously the company could publish estimates or assumptions about its impact, it will now need to provide auditable and ongoing data streams, Twomey-Madsen said.
“It’s a big job,” he said. “You learn more about your operations than you would by watching, so it’s not bad.”
Philips adds disciplined data collection
The Dutch medical technology company Philips has published a fully integrated report of ESG and financial metrics for more than 10 years. However, it is dedicating additional staff for the transition period in several functional teams including finance, procurement and sustainability strategy.
“That’s temporary, right, because once you’ve established the data structures and made sure they’re audit-proof … you can automate them again,” said Robert Metzke, senior vice president and global head of sustainability at Philips.
Philips manages between 800 and 1,000 different data points that will contribute to the report, but that will also provide valuable insights into how innovations around metrics such as energy and material efficiency contribute to business growth, he said. That will be important for making better decisions.
“There’s a lot of time-consuming work to align what we’re doing with the CSRD reporting standards but that will also be fixed, I think, in the next few years,” Metzke said. “Overall, if you were to ask me about CSRD, I think the desire to create transparency and accountability is good.”
AstraZeneca prepares CSRD dry run
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which is listed in the UK and Sweden, is due to publish its first report under the CSRD in 2026 but has completed its double material assessment and will prepare a “CSRD compliant” report in 2025 as a result, it said. Liz Chatwin, vice president of sustainability, safety, health and environment at AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca integrated a data team that supports its external reporting function to develop mandatory disclosures, and they now report to a dedicated leader for this effort. Chatwin works “hand in glove” with the controller of the company group; the two are co-chairmen of the external information management committee.
In particular, these two aim to ensure that all sites that contribute data and metrics to the CSRD report can ensure its accuracy. Some of this is automated through smart meters installed at its sites.
In addition to these internal resources, AstraZeneca has hired an external assurance organization to support its reporting and disclosure team in preparation and will adjust processes as needed for its first official report in 2026, “All systems go,” Chatwin said.
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