This article is for:
- Workspaces with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) add-on enabled
The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) help companies in the European Union (EU) — including EU-based subsidiaries of International companies — comply with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) or sustainability reporting.
To help align your reporting with the quantitative and qualitative requirements of the ESRS, you can supplement your Workiva workspace with additional templates and files:
- Templates to help document and collect stakeholder perspectives on the inward and outward impacts — or double-materiality — of ESRS topics on your company from Assessments and Reports
- A Gap assessment template spreadsheet, to record the results of the double-materiality assessment and identify any gaps
- The ESRS datapoint accelerator spreadsheet, to identify ESRS datapoints related to gaps identified and help ease the creation of corresponding Program metrics to resolve gaps
- An ESRS Readiness dashboard presentation
- Supporting queries and reports to connect data across files
Tip: If your Sustainability Reporting workspace has both Workiva AI and the CSRD add-on enabled, you can use additional features for AI-assisted reporting with the ESRS. To learn more, view Use Workiva AI with European Sustainability Reporting Standards.
Note: Implementation services are required to set up these supplemental templates and files in your workspace; additional costs may apply. For details, contact your implementation partner.
Step 1. Enable the ESRS in Explorer
To enable accurate, consistent, and comparable reporting, the ESRS include:
- Cross-cutting standards with general requirements and disclosures that apply to all industries and sectors
- Topical standards with requirements and disclosures for specific factors
To browse and search the content of these Standards, select ESRS from the Properties panel in Sustainability Explorer.
Tip: The European Financial Advisory Group (EFRAG) has issued ESRS Implementation Guidance (IG) documents for Materiality Assessment, Value Chain, or Detailed ESRS Datapoints. While this non-authoritative content doesn't appear in Explorer, you can download it directly from EFRAG.
For more information, refer to Explore European Sustainability Reporting Standards.
Step 2. Set up Reports for assessments
To help enable double-materiality assessments, provide the impacts, risks, and opportunities (IROs) — both positive and negative — to assess. For example:
- Impacts of whistleblower policies on your company, and of your company on climate change
- Risks to your company's cash flow, and of employee turnover
- Opportunities to improve employee morale and combat corruption
In addition, provide:
- The workspace members to receive assessments
- Which of your company's entities to include in assessments
- The affected stakeholder groups — such as investors, auditors, and local authorities
- The areas of your company's value chain to assess
Workiva uses this information to implement the double-materiality assessment templates. After implementation, select the stakeholders to receive each assessment from Reports :
| Assessment | Stakeholder assignment report |
|---|---|
| 0a. CSRS topic collection | 1. CSRD topic collection assessment stakeholder assignment in the 1. Step A: Understanding the context folder |
| 0b. IRO collection | 1. IRO collection assessment stakeholder assignment in the 2. Step B: Identification of the actual and potential IROs folder |
| 1. Impact materiality assessment | 1. Financial & impact assessments stakeholder assignment in the 3a. Financial & impact materiality assessments folder |
| 2. Financial materiality assessment | 1. Financial & impact assessments stakeholder assignment in the 3a. Financial & impact materiality assessments folder |
| 3. IRO materiality decision | 1. Topic & IRO decision assessment stakeholder assignment in the 3b. Materiality decision assessments folder |
| 4. Topic materiality decision | 1. Topic & IRO decision assessment stakeholder assignment in the 3b. Materiality decision assessments folder |
To learn more about Reports, view What are Reports?
Step 3. Assess topic materiality
To determine which ESRS standards to disclose, you can collect stakeholders' perspectives to identify which factors your company impacts — and vice versa — based on their double-materiality:
- Impact materiality, or your company's outward impacts — both positive and negative — on factors
- Financial materiality, or the inward impacts from topics — as risks and opportunities — to your company and its bottom line
Tip: For guidance on how to conduct a double-materiality assessment, refer to ESRS 1: General requirements.
To help assess the double-materiality of ESRS topics, the supplemental templates include several for Assessments .
| Template | Assesses |
|---|---|
| 0a. CSRS topic collection | The scope of the ESRS topics that require IROs or may be relevant to your business — such as based on desktop research, sustainability policies, objectives, or legislation — through workshops with stakeholder and their direct feedback |
| 0b. IRO collection | The IROs — both positive and negative — relevant to your company, its value chain, and affected stakeholders |
| 1. Impact materiality assessment | Actual and potential areas where your company impacts IROs, based on the sustainability matters identified in ESRS 1: General Requirements |
| 2. Financial materiality assessment | The financial materiality of IROs, in terms of how they affect capital and resources |
| 3. IRO materiality decision | The final materiality decision of IROs, based on their assessed impact and financial materiality |
| 4. Topic materiality decision | The final materiality decision of ESRS topics, based on their assessed impact and financial materiality |
Tip: When Workiva implements these templates, your company identifies which key stakeholders to consult for each topic's assessments.
From Assessments, use these templates to create and send assessments to collect stakeholders' perceptions on each topic's materiality. You can then gauge the materiality of ESRS topics based on the results of these assessments from Reports.
For more information, refer to Perform a double-materiality assessment for CSRD-ready reporting.
Step 4. Assess gaps in data collection
The supplemental templates include a Gap assessment spreadsheet.
From this spreadsheet, you can:
- Review the materiality of topics and their related ESRS disclosures, based on the results of the double-materiality assessment.
-
Identify gaps to reconcile in your data collection toward the disclosure and application requirements of material topics.
Tip: Disclosure requirements define what to disclose from a standard; application requirements define how to report the disclosure.
For more information, refer to Assess gaps in European Sustainability Reporting Standards.
Step 5. Track gap reconciliation
The supplemental templates also include an ESRS Readiness dashboard presentation. From this presentation, you can — at a glance — track gaps and analyze them by company function or topic.
- From the ESRS slide, view a high-level summary of your alignment with the ESRS.
- From the Progress slide, view trends in your overall gap reconciliation progress.
- From the Function slide, view progress by specific workspace members based on their business unit or function, such as Operations, Finance, or Overall.
- From the Topic slide, view progress toward a specific topic, such as Climate change or Own workforce.
Tip: The Dashboard section of the Gap assessment spreadsheet provides the source links for the values in the charts, graphs, and tables of the ESRS Readiness dashboard presentation.
Step 6. Collect values for ESRS topics
To help reconcile gaps, you can assign workspace members to collect metric values for the related ESRS disclosures from Sustainability Program.
When you create a metric:
- In Related Explorer content, align it with its corresponding ESRS standard or disclosure.
- In Reference attachments, upload the PDF of the full ESRS standard to ease access to any formulas or tables required for reporting.
- In Metric assignment, select workspace members to collect and approve the gap's value, and send their tasks to perform data collection through the metric, Workiva Tasks, or a connected source file.
Tip: To update the Gap assessment spreadsheet with values collected for metrics that align with ESRS content, from the Connections panel, click Refresh for the incoming connection of the Pull ESRS content & metrics sheet.
Step 7. Create your report
To disclose the values collected for your material topics, you can create a highly-designed report as a Document or Presentation.
Note: The ESRS require that you disclose some topics' values in prescribed table layouts. From Sustainability Explorer, you can download the portable document file (PDF) of the full ESRS — as published by the European Commission — to refer to these tables.
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