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The Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non-listed SMEs (VSME) is a reporting framework issued by EFRAG in December 2024 and adopted as a European Commission Recommendation on 30 July 2025. It gives small and medium-sized enterprises a single, standardised way to respond to ESG data requests from banks, investors and…

SME pathway · VSME standard The Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non-listed SMEs (VSME) was published by EFRAG on 17 December 2024 and recommended for uptake by the European Commission on 30 July 2025. Under Directive (EU) 2026/470 it has acquired a second function: it is the regulatory ceiling on…

Methodology · DMA approach Every double materiality assessment is, implicitly, one of two things: a top-down process that starts from known positions and validates them, or a bottom-up process that builds from a blank page. Most first-cycle practitioners do not consciously choose. The simplified ESRS brings the choice into the…

Supporting article · Adjacent content Double materiality determines which ESG topics an undertaking discloses under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. This article explains how the double materiality assessment flows into the sustainability statement — and how the Simplified ESRS and Omnibus I Directive changed the mechanics in 2026. 5 min…

Practical guide · DMA field guide A field guide, not a theoretical treatise. This article walks through the four-step DMA process set out in EFRAG IG 1 — context mapping, IRO identification, scoring, and reporting under ESRS 2 IRO-1 and IRO-2 — for practitioners who need to execute a cycle,…

Practical guide · Simplified ESRS EFRAG delivered its technical advice on the simplified ESRS to the European Commission on 3 December 2025. The advice does not amend the Accounting Directive; that work falls to Commission delegated acts due mid-2026. But it signals, in considerable technical detail, what the revised standards…

Regulatory update · Directive (EU) 2026/470 Directive (EU) 2026/470 was published in the Official Journal on 26 February 2026 and entered into force on 18 March 2026. It retains double materiality as the methodological core of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. It also narrows the scope, removes sector-specific standards and…

Reference · Practical guide EFRAG Implementation Guidance 1 is the non-authoritative but central reference document that sets out the illustrative process for conducting a double materiality assessment under ESRS 1. Published in final form in May 2024 and now read against the Simplified ESRS, it remains the starting point for…

The ESAs’ new ESG stress testing guidelines create the first unified EU framework for integrating environmental, social, and governance risks into supervisory stress tests, with application starting in 2027.

The ESAs’ new ESG stress testing guidelines create the first unified EU framework for integrating environmental, social, and governance risks into supervisory stress tests, with application starting in 2027.