Simplified ESRS from the Commission: reducing administrative burdens for EU companies

On 3 July 2026, the European Commission adopted the delegated regulation amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772, introducing a revision of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) as part of the Omnibus I package. The objective is to simplify sustainability reporting requirements by reducing the number of disclosures required and the administrative burden on companies.

The revision of the ESRS makes the standards shorter and clearer, introduces greater flexibility and simplifies certain key processes. It reduces mandatory data points by more than 60% and the overall number of required disclosures by more than 70%. According to estimates, these changes should result in a reduction of reporting costs of more than 30% per company, contributing to the Commission’s objective of reducing the burden associated with reporting obligations by 25%.

• Among the changes, one of the most notable updates concerns ESRS E2-5, which addresses the disclosure of information relating to Substances of Concern (SoC) and Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC): manufacturers of substances, formulators of mixtures and importers of substances and mixtures must report information relating to SoC and, separately, to SVHC included in the Candidate List;
• downstream users of substances and mixtures are required to disclose only SVHC included in the Candidate List;
• producers, importers and users of articles must report only SVHC included in the Candidate List that are present in articles at concentrations above 0.1%, using an approach consistent with Article 33 of the REACH Regulation, both for articles or components purchased and for those placed on the market.

The revision also confirms the amendment to the definition of Substances of Concern, from which the reference to substances that negatively affect the reuse and recycling of materials contained in products has been removed.

A further significant element is the introduction of specific transitional measures relating to ESRS E2-5.

For companies belonging to the so-called “wave one”, regardless of the size category indicated in the regulation, it will be possible to:

• omit quantitative information on SoC required by ESRS E2-5 until financial years before 2030;
• omit, until financial years before 2028, information on SVHC where the undertaking uses articles containing such substances.

For other undertakings, the transitional provisions instead provide for:

• the possibility to omit quantitative information on SoC in the first three financial years of reporting;
• the possibility of omitting information on SVHC for the first financial year of reporting, in the cases provided for by ESRS E2-5.

In parallel, the European Commission also adopted the delegated regulation on the Voluntary ESRS, the new voluntary reporting standard intended for small and medium-sized enterprises that are not subject to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The standard aims to provide a proportionate framework for the disclosure of sustainability information and to facilitate information requests from large companies and financial institutions.

Both delegated regulations are now subject to the scrutiny period of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, lasting two months and extending by a further two months. In the absence of objections, they will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will definitively enter into force.