Positives Echo auf die Kommissionsvorschläge zum Bürokratieabbau

I. As for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), various family businesses report annual costs for the practical implementation of the CSR-Directive between 300.000 and 600.000 EUR. In many companies, three full-time positions are necessary to fulfil the reporting obligations. This exceeds the original estimations by the European Commission by factor three.

The content of the ESRS causes massive legal uncertainty for family businesses. Many required data points are not available or deductible from a company’s accounting. E.g. for the calculation of the CO2-emissions, companies for bought products and services (Scope 3.1) use databases with no alternative. Depending on their sources the CO2-emission factors vary significantly. They vary for the same raw material significantly. The same information is requested for CBAM and digital product passport.

In addition, family businesses report significant comprehension issues regarding the wording and translation of different reporting standards, e.g. ESRS.E1.E1-6.AR 45d (Percentage of contractual instruments used for sale and purchase of energy bundled with attributes about energy generation in relation to Scope 2 GHG emissions). Moreover, the auditors also face similar uncertainties, limiting their ability to provide clear guidance on interpreting the standards. This often leads them to adopt a very conservative approach – to be on the safe site – which in turn unnecessarily increases the workload for the affected company in certain areas.

II. As for the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), this legislative act resulted in a new dimension of bureaucratic overload and legal uncertainty. This applies in particular to the number of affected supply relationships. Larger companies often have tens or even hundreds of thousands of suppliers at the first supplier level alone, a considerable proportion of which change every year. The costs of compliance run into the millions per company in many cases. To keep due diligence obligations manageable, the proposed limitation to direct suppliers can prove helpful.

In addition, an explicit exception for all suppliers and customers based in the EU internal market would be helpful – as a requirement of the risk-based approach. It is incomprehensible why companies cannot rely on their suppliers to comply with existing laws in Europe in the already highly regulated EU internal market. As a practical approach, the risk categorisation of countries of origin - as required within the EUDR - could be implemented as company guidance for the scope and the prioritisation of the risk-based due diligence approach within the CSDDD. This would increase the urgently needed legal certainty for companies.

Finally, the proposed removal of an European civil liability regime within the CSDDD can help avoiding incalculable legal risks. The EU legislator should not implement a liability regime parallel to national civil law.

III. As for CBAM, until the end of two-year transition period, companies must comply with detailed reporting obligations quarterly to national authorities. Exceptions only apply to imports from states with comparable mechanisms or with a value below 150 EUR.

For the reports, companies must request information from their suppliers regarding direct and often indirect pollutant emissions and consequently aggregate. The provided template includes dozens of - often detailed - obligatory information per supplier and production site. Even the European Commission`s guidelines include 266 DIN A4-pages for suppliers and 104 pages for their customers.

The European Commission´s threshold proposal would help limiting this massive bureaucratic burden. Additionally, the Commission should provide more standard values (“Emissions Factor Library”) for affected companies.