What is an ESG report and why do SMEs need sustainability reporting?
A sustainability report documents a company's performance in environmental, social, and corporate governance – or ESG for short. For SMEs, it is the most critical tool for demonstrating transparency to banks, major corporate clients, investors, and supply chain partners. With ESG Lift, SMEs can generate their CSRD-compliant ESG reporting in just 1–3 hours, starting from 890 euros/year.
What Does a Sustainability Report Contain?
A sustainability report is structured around three core pillars: Environment – energy consumption, carbon emissions, water, and waste; Social – workforce demographics, fair working conditions, equality, and occupational health and safety; Governance – corporate policies, compliance, and anti-corruption. The VS standard formats these precise three areas specifically for SMEs.
Why Do SMEs Need a Sustainability Report?
SMEs require an ESG report primarily for four key reasons: Supply Chains – large corporate clients subject to CSRD require ESG data from their suppliers; Banking – MaRisk 2023 mandates banks to conduct ESG risk assessments for corporate lending; Procurement – public authorities and industrial clients increasingly make sustainability performance a condition for contract awards; Talent Acquisition – skilled professionals actively prefer sustainable employers.
Which Sustainability Standard Applies to SMEs?
For SMEs, the EU Commission recommends the VS standard – featuring 147 modular data points, designed to avoid the complex ESRS burden placed on large corporations. ESG Lift implements this standard seamlessly for your business.
What is a sustainability report? Key content, structure and why SMEs need it for banks, major clients and tenders – including the VS-Standard.