EC publishes consultation on the revision of the NFRD

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20 Feb 2020

Following the launch of the initiative 'Revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive', the European Commission (EC) has now opened the consultation itself for public comment.

As reported earlier, Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis of the EC announced in January 2020 that later this year he would present a renewed sustainable finance strategy, which would include a revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). The initiative to update the NFRD was launched earlier this month. Today, the EC launched the consultation itself by publishing a consultation document. 

In the introduction to the consultation, the EC makes the following statement:

  1. There is inadequate publicly available information on non-financial issues as:
    • a) reported non-financial information is not sufficiently comparable or reliable;
    • b) companies do not report all non-financial information that users think is necessary, and many companies report information that users do not think is relevant;
    • c) some companies do not report such information; and
    • d) it is hard to find non-financial information even when it is reported.
  2. Companies incur unnecessary and avoidable costs related to reporting non-financial information.

The consultation document itself contains 45 questions in eight categories:

    1. Quality and scope of non-financial information to be disclosed
    2. Standardisation
    3. Application of the principle of materiality
    4. Assurance
    5. Digitisation
    6. Structure and location of non-financial information
    7. Personal scope (which companies should disclose)
    8. Simplification and reduction of administrative burdens for companies

"Standardisation" contains questions about whether there should be common standards for EU companies, what the relation between financial information and non-financial information should be and which bodies/groups should be involved in setting these standards (if that should be the case).

The consultation document is available on the EC website (login required). Feedback is requested by 14 May 2020.

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