EFRAG Provides Technical Advice to the European Commission on Simplified ESRS

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The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has submitted its technical advice to the European Commission (EC) on the draft simplified European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). This is a key step in the Omnibus package, released in February 2025, after a call from stakeholders and ‘wave 1’ companies that ESRS were unnecessarily complicated and a huge burden for companies.

Our position

We welcome the ESRS revision by EFRAG and the timely provision of technical advice to the EC. As the revisions are very significant, it is too early to fully understand their impact on reducing reporting burden. Without having seen the final legal text adopted through a delegated act by the EC (pending in early 2026), we anticipate that reporting will still remain a significant effort for companies. However, we support the EC’s goal of achieving ESRS simplification, especially regarding the simplification Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) and the increased inter-operability of standards.

Background

Since the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) came into force on 1 January 2023, there have been increasing demands in the European Union to streamline the requirements and reduce the reporting burden associated with sustainability reporting. In November 2024, the EC announced its intention to introduce a proposal to amend three key pillars of the European Green Deal through an Omnibus package: CSRD, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Taxonomy Regulation. The Omnibus package, released in February 2025, has resulted in several sets of proposals to date – revising the existing ESRS is one element of the proposals. For this, the EFRAG have been tasked by the European Commission to provide technical advice for the adoption of a delegated act to revise and simplify the existing ESRS. On 31 July 2025, EFRAG issued Exposure Drafts (EDs) revising all 12 existing ESRS, with a 60-day public consultation period. On 3 December 2025, after considering consultation feedback, EFRAG submitted its technical advice to the European Commission (EC) on the draft simplified ESRS.

Summary of modifications

To simplify the ESRS without compromising the objectives of the EU Green deal, the EFRAG revisions to the ESRS focused on several key simplification areas. This summary is not an exhaustive list.