ESG compliance
Start where the CSRD starts: double materiality
Two tests decide what you report. ESGen helps you run the assessment, evidence the outcome, and carry it through to a structured ESRS sustainability statement.
Transition and physical risk affect the business, while emissions affect the climate. E1 is material for most undertakings.
- Impact materiality
- 90
- Financial materiality
- 86
Material, disclose under this standard
A topic is material if it passes either test. Positions shown are illustrative; your own assessment sets them.
CSRD scope and timing have been amended through the EU’s Omnibus process. Whether the directive applies to your organisation, and from which financial year, depends on your own circumstances. We can help you prepare; confirm your obligations with your advisers.
One topic, two questions
How does the business affect people and the environment?
Considers actual and potential impacts, negative and positive, across your own operations and your value chain, over the short, medium, and long term.
Pass either test and the topic is material.
How does the topic affect the business?
Considers risks and opportunities that could reasonably affect your financial position, performance, cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital.
Pass either test and the topic is material.
The standards follow the assessment
You do not report everything. ESRS 2 always applies; the topical standards apply where the assessment says they do. Where a topic is not material, you explain why.
Your reporting set
Select the topics your assessment found material.
ESRS 2 applies to every undertaking in scope. Topical standards apply where your double materiality assessment says they do.
Built for the assurance conversation
The sustainability statement is assured. Your assurance provider will ask where each figure came from, so ESGen keeps the answer attached to it.
The assessment itself
How topics were scored, who was consulted, and why each conclusion was reached.
The datapoints behind it
Activity data, emission factors, and the calculation performed for every disclosed figure.
The changes since
A record of what moved, when, and why, so restatements can be explained rather than discovered.
Questions about the CSRD
What is the CSRD?
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is EU law requiring in-scope companies to report sustainability information using the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), with the information subject to assurance.
What is double materiality?
Two tests applied to every sustainability topic. Impact materiality asks how your business affects people and the environment. Financial materiality asks how the topic affects your own financial position, performance, and cash flows. A topic is material if it passes either test.
Which standards would we report against?
ESRS 2, the general disclosures, applies to every undertaking in scope. The topical standards, E1 to E5, S1 to S4, and G1, apply where your materiality assessment finds the topic material.
Does the CSRD apply to UK companies?
It can. Scope depends on factors such as EU turnover, whether you have a large EU subsidiary, and securities listed on an EU regulated market. The scope and timing have also been subject to change through the EU's Omnibus proposals, so you should confirm your position rather than assume it.
What does assurance mean here?
The sustainability statement is subject to an assurance engagement. In practice that means an assurance provider will want to see the source data, the method, and the trail behind each figure, not just the final number.
How does ESGen help?
ESGen structures the materiality assessment, holds the underlying data against each disclosure, and retains the calculation and its source. That produces the evidence base your assurance provider will ask for. Responsibility for the statement remains with the company.
Start your journey now
See how ESGen turns a double materiality assessment into a structured ESRS evidence base.