Highlights
First-wave companies reporting under ESRS will be relieved from additional reporting requirements by the European Commission's' ‘quick fix’ amendments.
While the Omnibus process and ESRS simplification are ongoing, the amendments allow first-wave companies to:
- continue applying phase-in reliefs until FY27; and to
- delay application of four standards – biodiversity and three social standards.
The amendments will apply for 2025 reporting periods.
What are the changes?
The amendments aim to ensure that no first-wave company is required to report additional information in FY25 and FY26 as compared to FY24 – e.g. anticipated financial effects.
Further, the amendments will extend certain phase-in reliefs currently only available to companies with fewer than 750 employees to all first-wave companies.1
The table below summarises the changes.
What's next?
The amendments are now subject to an initial two-month scrutiny period by the European Parliament and Council of the EU, which may be extended to a maximum of four months.
If they raise no objections, the amended standards will take effect without the need for transposition into national laws. The revised Appendix C of ESRS 1, which defines the phased-in disclosures, will apply to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025.
- lf a company takes advantage of these temporary reliefs and omits disclosures for an entire topic that it has assessed as material, it is nevertheless required to disclose certain summarised information about that topic.
- The quick fix amendments do not amend this phase-in relief. However, under the Omnibus proposals, sector-specific ESRS would not be adopted and the requirement under SBM-1 would not apply.
- SBM-3 and E1-9 specify that relief is available from providing quantitative information about anticipated financial effects in the first three annual reporting periods if it is impracticable to do so. For the other topic-specific standards, there is no impracticability threshold to demonstrate to apply the relief.
- Despite the relief, ESRS E2 Pollution still requires information about operating and capital expenditures during the reporting period in conjunction with major incidents and deposits – i.e. some quantitative information is required.
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