10 Surprising Things About the CSRD

In this 20-minute video, Gibson Dunn’s Cynthia Mabry joins us to cover how the CSRD will impact a US company’s SEC and sustainability reporting – directly or indirectly – particularly these 10 surprising things (including a reality-check on the EU’s announcement last week that it was delaying its CSRD reporting deadlines by two years):

1. CSRD is not directly applicable law
2. EU Commission has only adopted the first ESRS – more ESRSs (and disclosure requirements) to come
3. Much broader than the proposed SEC climate disclosure rules – how broad is what is most surprising
4. Whether in-scope or not – companies in a EU company’s value chain may have indirect CSRD reporting obligations
5. If US-parent has net turnover of > € 150M in two consecutive years, it only takes one EU subsidiary under general scoping to trigger CSRD reporting obligations
6. Parent level reporting must cover entire operations – both EU and non-EU operations
7. For scoping, “part-time” employees and “temporary” workers are included in the calculation of average number of employees
8. CSRD is likely to accelerate the current sustainability reporting timeline for many US companies
9. Limited assurance is mandatory, and required for the full sustainability report
10. If a topic is not material (from a financial and impact perspective), an undertaking still has to report why the topic is not material (from a financial and impact perspective)