Position paper - Letter on reduction of reporting requirements

American businesses support the objectives of sustainability reporting in line with the EU´s ambitious climate targets. However, the anticipated complexity and detail of the draft European Sustainability Standards (ESRS) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive present a significant and new challenge.

Therefore, the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) welcomes President von der Leyen’s announcement that the European Commission would seek ‘to put forward concrete proposals to simplify reporting requirements and in fact to reduce them by 25%.’ 

Businesses need this reduction in reporting requirements, which would be helped by aligning, where possible, the ESRS with the global baseline under development by the International Sustainability Standards Board. International convergence would allow for more comparable information while significantly reducing costs and lightening companies’ administrative burden.

In the letter below, AmCham EU presents both context about this issue and proposals for simplifying the reporting requirements.