Council of the European Union adopts ESG disclosure Directive for large companies and groups
29 Sep, 2014
The Council of the European Union (“the Council”) has adopted the Directive on disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by large companies and groups.
The new Directive, which amends the Accounting Directive (Directive 2013/34/EU), applies to large public-interest entities with more than 500 employees. Public-interest entities include listed companies as well as some unlisted companies, such as banks, insurance companies and other companies that are so designated by Member States because of their activities, size or number of employees.
Such companies will be required to disclose information in their annual reports on environmental, social and employee matters, respect for human rights, anti-corruption and bribery matters. The disclosure will need to include a description of the policy pursued by the company related to these matters, the results of these policies and the risks related to these matters and how the company manages those risks.
Welcoming the adoption of the Directive, the European Commission highlighted:
Companies in the scope of the Directive will disclose relevant, useful information necessary for an understanding of their development, performance, position and impact of their activity, rather than detailed reports. Furthermore, the Directive provides companies with significant flexibility to disclose relevant information in the way that they consider most useful, or in a separate report. Companies may use international, European or national guidelines which they consider appropriate.
The EU Commission proposed amendments in this area in April 2013. These were subsequently approved by the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament in December 2013. In April 2014 the Directive was adopted by the EU Parliament. The Directive will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Directive must be adopted by EU member states within 2 years of that date. Therefore, companies concerned will start reporting under the new Directive as of their financial year 2017.
The new rules complement the narrative reporting regulations in the UK which apply for periods ending on or after 30 September 2013. Through complying with the narrative reporting regulations UK quoted companies will already be disclosing specific information on the company’s strategy, business model, human rights and gender diversity in their strategic report and disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions in their Directors’ report. The new Directive will extend the level of disclosures required on diversity (for example policies on age, gender, educational and professional background and professional background) and will specifically require reporting on bribery and corruption matters for the first time. However, for some large non-quoted UK companies that fall within the definition of a Public-interest entity, the Directive may bring about significant new disclosures in their annual reports that were previously not required by regulation.
Click for:
- Press release on the website of the Council of the European Union
- Statement on the European Commission's website
- Our previous UK Accounting Plus news item on ESG disclosure Directive for large companies and groups.