Your SME provides goods or services to large companies? They may have asked you to provide them with social or environmental information. The same applies to the share of financial institutions. These obligations give rise to costs and constraints. In order to assess its impact and possibly revise the Directive requiring certain large companies to disclose non-financial information, the European Commission is launching a consultation with SMEs.
Background
The Directive on the disclosure of non-financial information requires certain large companies to include a non-financial statement as part of their public annual reporting obligations.
The Non-Financial Reporting Directive highlights four issues related to sustainability:
· environment,
· social issues and staff matters,
· human rights; and
· corruption.
The Directive obliges companies to disclose information on their business model, policies (including due diligence procedures), outcomes of such policies, risks and risk management, and key performance indicators for their activities.
Objective of this questionnaire
Your information will help the European Commission to assess the impact of the legal obligations imposed on large companies and their supply chain. Your contribution will enable the European Commission to estimate the costs incurred by SMEs in responding to requests for social and environmental information from large companies to which they supply goods or services, as well as applications from financial institutions. The European Commission will use the information collected when considering a possible revision of the social and environmental reporting requirements of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive.
Reply to the survey before 23 April via the attached document.
