COMPLIANCE & REGULATORY
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires large organizations with EU operations to produce sustainability statements aligned with European Sustainability Reporting Standards — covering material environmental, social, and governance topics across operations and value chains. CSRD is not an extension of existing voluntary sustainability reporting. It is a regulatory disclosure framework, subject to mandatory external assurance, and designed to produce data that investors, regulators, and supply chain partners can verify and compare.
For organizations in scope, the first and most consequential step is the double materiality assessment — identifying which sustainability topics are material from both a financial risk perspective and an impact perspective. Everything that follows is built on that foundation. Semtrio designs the full readiness journey: from materiality through to final ESRS-aligned disclosure, produced to a standard that holds up under scrutiny.
The EU's Omnibus I Directive (February 2026) confirmed the revised CSRD scope — large organizations with more than 1,000 employees and net turnover exceeding €450 million. Wave 1 companies are already reporting. Wave 2 and Wave 3 timelines have been delayed by two years. Organizations that meet the size thresholds — including EU subsidiaries of non-EU groups — should be preparing now regardless of wave assignment.
CSRD is the EU directive — the legal instrument that creates the obligation. ESRS are the 12 European Sustainability Reporting Standards that define what must be disclosed, how data is structured, and how materiality is determined across Environmental, Social, and Governance topics. CSRD sets the mandate; ESRS defines the implementation. Organizations that conflate the two often underestimate the technical depth that ESRS reporting requires.
CSRD requires organizations to conduct a double materiality assessment before determining what to disclose. Topics that are material from a financial risk perspective and topics that are material from an impact perspective must both be identified and prioritized. The outcome of the double materiality assessment defines the scope of the entire sustainability statement — making it the most strategically important step in the CSRD process.
The scale of ESRS reporting requirements — covering up to 12 topical standards across climate, pollution, water, biodiversity, resource use, workforce, value chain workers, communities, consumers, and business conduct — means that most organizations cannot meet CSRD from existing data sources. The data collection architecture, the stakeholder engagement process for double materiality, and the governance documentation required by ESRS 2 (General Disclosures) all need to be designed and built before the first sustainability statement is drafted.
Semtrio's CSRD advisory is structured around this reality. We begin with scoping and double materiality — establishing which topics are material and therefore which ESRS standards apply. We then design the data collection infrastructure and governance documentation. We draft the ESRS-aligned sustainability statement, cross-referencing with GHG accounting, GRI, and CDP disclosure to eliminate duplication. And we prepare the outputs for the limited assurance process that CSRD mandates.
For organizations with EU subsidiaries, complex group structures, or supply chains that extend the value chain obligations of CSRD — Semtrio designs the reporting architecture at the level of complexity the structure requires. One accountable partner across the full CSRD obligation.
OUR PROCESS
A complete CSRD readiness system — from scoping through to assured sustainability statement.
The double materiality assessment is not optional under CSRD — it defines the scope of everything that follows. For organizations that need the assessment as a standalone engagement before full CSRD readiness, Semtrio delivers it as a structured, stakeholder-informed process with a documented, audit-ready output.
Learn moreESRS E1 (Climate Change) requires disclosure of Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions — organizations without a verified, methodology-aligned GHG inventory cannot complete the climate standard. Semtrio designs GHG accounting to serve CSRD, CDP, and SBTi simultaneously from one data source.
Learn moreCSRD and the accompanying CSDDD extend disclosure and due diligence obligations into the value chain — organizations must assess and report on supply chain ESG risks beyond their own operations. Semtrio's supplier due diligence engagements produce the structured, audit-ready data ESRS value chain disclosures require.
Learn moreMany organizations subject to CSRD also produce GRI-aligned sustainability reports for stakeholder audiences. Semtrio designs CSRD and GRI disclosure to draw from the same data architecture — reducing duplication and improving consistency across both outputs.
Learn moreWe have completed the most rigorous third-party ESG assessment available — and we produce CSRD-aligned disclosure across every material topic ESRS covers.
CSRD advisory requires technical fluency across all 12 ESRS standards — environmental, social, and governance — combined with the process expertise to govern a disclosure that spans multiple functions, multiple data sources, and in many cases multiple entities. Most advisory engagements fail not in the drafting but in the data governance and double materiality process that precedes it. Semtrio is structured to manage both.
As a certified B Corporation with a score of 140.3 — placing us among the highest-performing B Corps globally — Semtrio has completed a comprehensive, independently verified assessment across every dimension that ESRS covers: governance, workers, community, environment, and customer-facing practices. We have produced the evidence, closed the gaps, and been assessed against a third-party standard more rigorous than most regulatory requirements. When we advise clients on ESRS documentation and evidence preparation, we do so from direct operational experience of the same process.
We work at the intersection of ESRS and IFRS S2 — the two disclosure frameworks that are increasingly converging in practice. For organizations managing both CSRD and IFRS S2 obligations, Semtrio designs a unified data architecture that serves both — one data collection process, two compliant outputs.
Assess your CSRD exposure with our teamWhether you're scoping a single service engagement, evaluating end-to-end advisory across multiple clusters, or looking for one accountable partner across strategy and disclosure — start here.
Yaren Ünal
Senior Specialist,Client Solutions
Hamza Söylemez
Specialist,Client Solutions
Frequently asked questions about CSRD and ESRS
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is the EU's mandatory framework for sustainability disclosure, requiring large organizations with EU operations to produce sustainability statements aligned with European Sustainability Reporting Standards. The Omnibus I Directive (February 2026) confirmed the current scope thresholds: organizations with more than 1,000 employees and net turnover exceeding €450 million. Wave 1 companies — large public-interest entities that were already subject to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive — are currently reporting. Wave 2 and Wave 3 timelines have been extended by two years. EU subsidiaries of non-EU parent companies meeting the size thresholds are also in scope, regardless of where the parent is headquartered.
CSRD is the EU directive — the legal instrument that creates the mandatory obligation to produce sustainability disclosures. ESRS — the European Sustainability Reporting Standards — are the 12 standards that define what must be disclosed, how materiality is determined, and how data must be structured and presented. CSRD sets the mandate; ESRS defines the implementation. The two work together: CSRD without ESRS is a legal obligation without a methodology; ESRS without CSRD is a framework without a legal trigger. For organizations in scope, both are simultaneously relevant and must be addressed together.
The double materiality assessment is the mandatory first step of CSRD compliance — it determines which sustainability topics are material and therefore which ESRS standards apply. CSRD requires materiality to be assessed from two perspectives simultaneously: impact materiality (how the organization's activities affect people and the environment) and financial materiality (how sustainability risks and opportunities affect the organization's financial performance and position). Topics that are material from either perspective must be disclosed. The assessment must be stakeholder-informed, documented, and defensible to external assurance providers — which means the methodology and evidence must meet a standard that goes substantially beyond what most organizations currently apply to materiality assessments.
An ESRS-aligned sustainability statement covers four disclosure areas for each material topic: governance (how the organization oversees the topic), strategy (how it affects the business model and value chain), impacts, risks, and opportunities, and metrics and targets. The general disclosures required under ESRS 2 apply regardless of which topical standards are material and cover governance structure, stakeholder engagement, double materiality methodology, and value chain boundaries. Each applicable topical standard — covering climate, pollution, water, biodiversity, resource use, workforce, value chain workers, communities, consumers, or business conduct — has its own specific disclosure requirements and data points. For Wave 1 reporters, limited assurance on the sustainability statement is mandatory from the first reporting cycle.
Semtrio's CSRD advisory covers the full readiness cycle in four phases. We begin with CSRD scoping and double materiality assessment — determining which entities are in scope, conducting the stakeholder-informed materiality assessment across all ESRS topics, and producing a documented materiality matrix that defines which standards apply. We then design the data collection architecture and governance documentation to fill identified gaps. We draft the complete ESRS-aligned sustainability statement — cross-referenced with GHG inventories, GRI reports, and CDP disclosures to eliminate duplication. Finally, we prepare the disclosure for the limited assurance process, organizing evidence and responding to auditor queries to ensure the output meets the standard required for first-year and subsequent reporting cycles.
Talk to our team about your CSRD readinessWhether you are scoping your CSRD obligations for the first time or preparing to accelerate toward your first ESRS-aligned sustainability statement — we will assess your position, confirm what applies, and take ownership of the delivery process.
Whether you are scoping your CSRD obligations for the first time or preparing to accelerate toward your first ESRS-aligned sustainability statement — we will assess your position, confirm what applies, and take ownership of the delivery process.
