Last week saw guests join Dublin Chamber for From Readiness to Reporting: Practical ESG Tools for SMEs, an information session dedicated to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the EU-wide tools to support SMEs with their reporting.
The European Sustainability Reporting Standards, or ESRS, are the standards that EU businesses—including qualifying EU subsidiaries of non-EU companies—must report against as part of the disclosure requirements dictated by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
The event, supported by RESPONSE Project, included an expert panel on EU regulation on ESG and reporting standards for SMEs. Guests heard from Fiona Campbell, Director of Public Affairs at Drury, Pádraic Ó hUiginn, Lead of the Climate Action and Sustainability Centre of Excellence at NSAI, and Courtnee Kyle, Head of Sustainability at PTSB.
SMEs face increasing pressure from customers and investors to communicate ESG information, but many lack the financial resources, technical expertise, robust data collection processes, and sufficient incentives to undertake this voluntary task. The RESPONSE project was created to address these shortcomings by providing accessible materials that will enable SMEs to understand and apply sustainability standards, conduct materiality analyses, and generate ESG reports in a simplified manner. The tools, outlined during the event, are available free of charge.
The session demonstrated the self-assessment tools developed by the RESPONSE Project to help companies work through their sustainability reporting, while also showcasing the reporting template for SMEs and helping them through its usage. Guest companies also had the opportunity to sign up and become power users of RESPONSE's toolkit in its pilot phase.
A special thank you to Fiona, Pádraic and Courtnee for their time and insight, and to our project partners and contributors for helping demonstrate the free tools and resources available to SMEs.
If you missed the session and want to learn more about RESPONSE and the ESG reporting tools available to SMEs, please visit the RESPONSE website.