ESEF today, ESG tomorrow

Next Eurofiling virtual event: Thursday 11th March 2021, 14:00-16:00. See more and book your registration at 2021.eurofiling.info    Panelists welcome!

This is a quarterly event of two hours in the afternoon, as  preferred option of the Eurofiling community. See full results of the past Eurofiling survey. Many thanks to all the respondents!

Eurofiling Carvings: The new awards in the Eurofiling Hall-Of-Fame are for Luc Dufresne as Founder Eurofiling President, Derek De Brandt as Founder Eurofiling Director, and Elina Koskentalo for her tireless work in Europe and Finland.

Elina Koskentalo and Javier Mora are welcomed as new Board Members as well as Ignacio Boixo as new President of the Board.

Luc Dufresne and Derek De Brandt  step-back from the Eurofiling Foundation Board, while being recognised as Honorary President and Honorary Director.

See details and video on the Eurofiling Celebration of Hope event on December 17.

XBRL Europe digital event. 1 Dec. 9:45 – 12:15 CET

XBRL Germany digital event. 1-2 Dec. 13:45 – 16:00 CET

XBRL France digital event. 2 December 9:45 – 12:15 CET

XBRL Italy digital event. 2 December 9:45 – 13:00 CET

XBRL NL digital event. 3 December  13:15 – 16:05 CET

XBRL ESEF software solution event. 4 Dec. 9:30–13:00

XBRL España 16 Dec. 9:00–11:45 demos 12:00–13:45

Eurofiling Celebration of Hope  17 Dec. 15:00-16:30

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published today the ESEF Conformance Suite to facilitate implementation of the ESEF Regulation.

The Conformance Suite builds on the rules and guidance set out by the ESEF Regulation and the ESEF Reporting Manual. It consists of 157 XBRL report packages, grouped into 60 tests, packaged in a zip file. It is accompanied by an Excel file which describes the rules and guidelines and the test cases, together with the expected error codes in case of incompliance. For each identified rule and guideline there is at least one valid and one invalid test case.

UK: New digital tool enables easier energy and carbon reporting

The Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) taxonomy allows businesses to report their energy and carbon data when they file digital accounts with Companies House. The taxonomy has been developed by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in collaboration with Companies House and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and enables businesses to report information in XBRL format. Many companies already submit accounts using XBRL, but this is the first time it has been utilised to capture environmental data in annual reports.

20 February 2020. The Commission has today launched a public consultation on the review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). This Directive requires certain large companies to include a non-financial statement (e.g. on environmental or social issues) as part of their annual public reporting obligations.
Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President, said, “Tackling climate change has implications across the board, including on corporate reporting. Our transformation to a carbon-neutral economy means that people need more information from the companies they are investing in. As things stand today, there is currently a sustainability reporting gap that is hampering progress towards a sustainable financial system. The needs of investors for corporate sustainability information are growing faster than any improvements in company reporting. ”
CONSULTATION DOCUMENT: REVIEW OF THE NON-FINANCIAL REPORTING DIRECTIVE
5. DIGITISATION The EU has introduced a structured data standard, the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) under the Transparency Directive. With effect from 1 January 2020 listed companies in the EU shall report their annual financial reports in XHTML (audited financial statements, management report and issuer’s responsibility statements). Additionally, if the consolidated financial statements are prepared in IFRS, the XHTML document should also be tagged using iXBRL elements specified in the ESEF taxonomy. This allows the information to be machine-readable. 

06 February 2020. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has today published its Strategy on Sustainable Finance. Steven Maijoor, Chair, said: The financial markets are at a point of change with investor preferences shifting towards green and socially responsible products, and with sustainability factors increasingly affecting the risks, returns and value of investments.
The strategy sets out how ESMA will place sustainability at the core of its activities by embedding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors in its work. (Page 4) The enhanced regulatory framework increases, through a single set of standards, transparency obligations and enhancement of due diligence processes on financial markets participants in relation to ESG. It should ensure that the risk of “greenwashing” is reduced and that investors are informed about, and can compare, the ESG credentials of their investments.

See full information at www.greenfiling.info

Goal: Create an extensible reporting framework, for financial and non-financial entities, on the climate change footprint, suitable for use in any Jurisdiction and with any metrics, in line with regulatory reporting frameworks. The framework will be metrics-agnostic, oriented to structured data, taking advantage of the lessons learnt in Banking and Insurance reporting taxonomies, supported by Data Point Model methodology and being Internet-ready (XHTML plus iXBRL).

This is the third video of a set of tutorials which ESMA is preparing to inform all relevant market participants of the new requirements set out by the ESEF regulation starting in 2020 and will impact all issuers within the Transparency Directive.

• Third video tutorial (7’11”) and script published on 11 Sep 2019
• Second video tutorial (13’03”) and script published on 28 Feb 2019
• First video tutorial (11’15”) and script published on 19 Nov 2018

Q&A on the RTS on European Single Electronic Format (ESEF)
Transparency requirements for listed companies in the EU