Adopt versions of European Sustainability Reporting Standards

In response to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) Omnibus, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) published revisions to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) established with the ESRS Delegated Act of 2023:

Simplified ESRS, published as draft revisions by EFRAG in December 2025
Revised ESRS, adopted as final by the European Commission (EC) in July 2026

From your Sustainability Reporting workspace, you can use the ESRS to begin to prepare CSRD disclosures.

What changed

EFRAG introduced changes with each version of the ESRS.

Simplified ESRS
Revised ESRS

The simplified ESRS include a number of amendments to the ESRS Delegated Act of 2023:

New and revised content, to:
- Clarify requirements and address implementation challenges
- Better align with global reporting standards like the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Sustainability Disclosure Standards (SDS)
- Highlight specific principles-based concepts like Fair Representation
- Remove superfluous or redundant information
Revised datapoints, including:
- The removal of all voluntary datapoints, which instead appear in the Non-Mandatory Illustrative Guidance (NMIG)
- A limited number of new datapoints
- A reduction in the total number of mandatory datapoints

Note: For a comprehensive list of the changes, refer to EFRAG's Log of Amendments. For details of why they changed, refer to EFRAG's Basis for Conclusions.

The revised ESRS maintain changes implemented by the draft simplified ESRS — particularly the reduction in mandatory data points — and also:

Clarify materiality rules. The revised ESRS say companies "shall not" report immaterial disclosures, where the simplified ESRS simply state companies "are not required" to report such information.
Expand phase-in reliefs. The revised ESRS give extra time to report some employee, consumer, and value chain information. For anticipated financial effects specifically, quantitative disclosures are delayed until financial year 2030 for Wave-one undertakings reporting financial years 2024-2026, or for the first four years of reporting for other undertakings starting from 2027.
Align with EU Omnibus I. Separately from the ESRS revision, EU Omnibus I legislation reduces the scope of CSRD itself. The revised ESRS adjust for consistency with the reduced scope and also align definitions across multiple EU laws to help prevent redundant work.

Tip: Workiva AI can help identify changes between the Delegated Act of 2023 and revised ESRS. In a chat, Add both ESRS and Revised ESRS as knowledge bases, then prompt for differences between disclosure requirements. To learn more, view Use Workiva AI with European Sustainability Reporting Standards.

The revised ESRS officially apply for financial years that start on or after January 1, 2027. For 2026, you can:

Keep current ESRS as-is: Continue to apply the existing ESRS — as amended by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1416 — unchanged.
Fully adopt revised ESRS: Apply the full set of the revised Standards early.
Apply current ESRS with targeted reliefs: Apply the existing Standards, but with a set of reliefs defined in Annex 1 of the revised ESRS — including a top-down approach to double-materiality assessment (DMA), limitations on undue cost and effort, and a separate presentation of Taxonomy disclosures.

Note: Clearly state which version of ESRS you apply in your sustainability statement.

Explore ESRS version

From the Frameworks panel in Sustainability Explorer, you can browse and review the different versions of the ESRS:

The ESRS Delegated Act of 2023 appears as the Current version.
The revised ESRS appear as a Pending version.
The simplified ESRS appear as an Archived version.

As you review the Standards, you can:

Bookmark Standards and disclosure requirements relevant to your sustainability reporting.
Discuss requirements with collaborators through comment threads.
Align disclosure requirements with metrics in Sustainability Program that collect related values.

To learn more, view Explore European Sustainability Reporting Standards.

Transition Program metrics

If you have Program metrics aligned with the ESRS Delegated Act of 2023 or simplified ESRS, you can use an ESRS Transition Accelerator — available in the Workiva Marketplace — to determine the impact of the revised Standards and make any adjustments.

With an ESRS Transition Accelerator, you can:

Compare the ESRS Delegated Act or simplified ESRS with the revised ESRS, and view what changed between them.
Determine how the revised ESRS may impact your metrics and data collection needs.
Automatically generate Import templates to create, update, and remove metrics as necessary in Sustainability Program.

To learn more, view Prepare for revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards with ESRS Transition Accelerator.

Update CSRD DMA assessments

If your Sustainability Reporting workspace includes the CSRD add-on, you can request a Simplified ESRS DMA Topics and DRs Spreadsheet from your Workiva Customer Success Manager (CSM) to prepare your double-materiality assessment (DMA) templates for the simplified ESRS.

Note: To update your DMA templates, you can either import new topics or align your current topics with the simplified ESRS. Consult your advisory partner to determine which is right for your reporting needs.

To learn more, view Update DMA templates for simplified European Sustainability Reporting Standards.

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