With busy bees to sustainability: CURENTIS at beefuture's CSRD seminar
CURENTIS cooperates with beefuture as part of its sustainability strategy. Beefuture promotes bee growth and offers its partners the care of a beehive. A busy CURENTIS bee colony has been living on the beefuture site on Lake Ammersee since April 2022.
On June 26, 2024, we gladly took the opportunity to visit our partner company beefuture(https://beefuture.online/) and attend an exciting information event on the topic of "CSRD reporting - sustainable ways for more transparency". The event offered insights into the implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and highlighted the challenges and possible solutions for companies. Philipp Ehren took part in the event on behalf of CURENTIS AG.
The event kicked off with a presentation by Delphine Jeske on the practical implementation of the CSRD. This was followed by a panel discussion with experts who have already gained practical experience with the implementation of the CSRD: Markus König (Sales & Marketing Management, FRIEDRICH SCHARR KG), Stefanie Buchacher (Senior Sustainability Manager, BOGNER Willy Bogner GmbH), Ann Mertens (Sustainability Officer, Mosca GmbH) and Frank Weiß (Partner & Managing Director, beefuture GmbH). The discussion was moderated by Janina Lang (Director & Authorized Signatory, Fokus Zukunft GmbH & Co. KG).
During the course of the event, it became clear that reporting in accordance with the CSRD poses major challenges for companies. In addition to the well-known difficulty of collecting data internally and externally, auditing the supply chain also poses problems for companies. The analysis of double materiality is particularly tricky. On the one hand, a lot of time must be invested in this analysis by the person responsible, but also by various business units and the management level. On the other hand, many points raise the question of which points are really relevant, especially in relation to different business areas with different focal points. In addition, it is necessary to standardize the data collection as well as the results feedback and, at best, to standardize the entire procedure, as this process must take place annually.
In addition to the challenges, various solutions and support approaches were presented that are already being used successfully in the companies represented. All of the discussion partners agreed that their first CSRD report will not be perfect and that a certain learning curve must be planned for. It was therefore clearly recommended that a first report be prepared at an early stage. For example, all of the companies represented in the discussion group are not obliged to prepare a CSRD report for 2024 due to their size, but they are all already working on preparing one for 2023. This offers the advantage of being able to deal with the details promptly and produce reports that do not necessarily have to be perfect.
Centralization of responsibility and comprehensive communication were also highlighted. There are three main target groups to consider when it comes to communication. Firstly, the company's own employees, in order to convey an understanding of the topic and demonstrate the importance of cooperation. The second group requires an open exchange with the supply chain in order to share as much relevant data as possible. The third pillar requires clear communication with the report recipients to disclose what information is not yet available to the company at this point in time.
Finally, the importance of partnerships and external support was also emphasized in order to be able to safely manage the first extraordinarily high reporting effort.
With all the challenges and expenses for a company mentioned above, the question quickly arose as to why a company should invest so much money and personnel in this topic. On the one hand, of course, there is the legal obligation to prepare such a report from a defined point in time (depending on the company's key figures). On the other hand, however, the panel participants also gave good reasons for voluntarily submitting to such a report. The three main reasons cited were competitive advantage, optimization through transparency and access to the capital market. The participants agree that comprehensive reporting together with a sustainable orientation of the company will represent a major competitive advantage in the future. Our society is paying more and more attention to these aspects, which is why transparent companies can count on strong advantages in the future. Furthermore, the transparency created by the detailed processing of CSRD reporting offers great opportunities to find and leverage optimization potential in the company, as a deeper insight into many processes is created. In conclusion, it is noted that banks in particular will attach more and more importance to sustainability or at least the provision of sustainability indicators in the future. This could make it easier or even possible to obtain loans for further investments from financial institutions and attract investors.
However, in addition to the positive voices on sustainability efforts and the necessary CSRD reporting, critical aspects were also raised. For an individual company, the question arises as to where the money for reporting and sustainable corporate restructuring should come from. In addition, some in the audience questioned whether all these investments will pay off in the future, despite the reasons mentioned above.
At the level of the European Economic Area, there was speculation that the expensive obligations would fundamentally harm the economy here. On the one hand through high costs and loss of competitiveness and on the other hand through the migration of companies, especially those with high emission values. In the case of the latter, it was even noted that the same companies may emit more CO2 abroad than they would in the European Economic Area, as there are often very low targets abroad.
Overall, the event made it clear that although CSRD reporting presents challenges, it also offers great opportunities for companies. It not only enables companies to meet regulatory requirements, but also to identify optimization potential and strengthen their competitive position. The experts emphasized the need for a proactive approach and underlined the importance of sustainability reporting as an integral part of future-oriented corporate management.
If you would also like to receive a comprehensive introduction to the practical implementation of CSRD reporting, you are cordially invited to our web seminar(https://curentis.com/event/curentis-web-seminar-corporate-sustainable-reporting-directive-expansion-of-non-financial-reporting/).
For a personal consultation, you can contact us at any time at ralf.penndorf@curentis.com and philipp.ehren@curentis.com.
About the author: Philipp Ehren has been a senior consultant at CURENTIS AG since 2021. He has several years of experience from project work in risk management with a focus on IT applications. In addition, he has specialized in Sustainable/Green Finance.
