The EU’s occupational pensions supervisor has stated it is concerned about the effect of proposed reliefs included in revised European standards for corporate sustainability reporting.
EIOPA built its comments in an opinion for the European Commission on suggestions from the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group on revised draft European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which underpin the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
The new standards aim to cut mandatory datapoints by 61%, simplify materiality assessments, and introduce flexibility for value chain data, phasing-in, and proportionality mechanisms.
It is now up to the Commission to adopt formal rules, after taking into account feedback from the European supervisory authorities.
EIOPA stated it fully supported the simplification efforts in the draft revised ESRS and “welcomes the work undertaken by EFRAG to reduce reporting burdens while keeping sustainability reporting meaningful”.
However, it stated it had concerns that the proposed removal of “data hierarchy”, meaning that direct data would not have to be prioritised over estimated data, may lead to a lower quality and hence comparability and reliability of the disclosures for insurers and pension funds as data applyrs.
“This might also negatively affect the possibility of comparing financial product disclosures under the [Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR)] and reliance on them by consumers, as the financial disclosures in the ‘financial product categories, – as proposed by the European Commission in the SFDR proposal of 19 November 2025 – would still rely on data provided from the sustainability statements of investee companies, in particular on Principal Adverse Impacts identified and addressed by financial market participants,” EIOPA added.
It also warned that the cumulative effect of the permanent reliefs proposed may dissuade companies from improving their reporting practices over time.
It therefore recommfinished introducing a time limit of three years on a waiver for data related to corporate own operations due to “undue cost or effort”.
“This time limit would also ensure interoperability with IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards in the medium and longer term and to achieve the core CSRD objective of enabling the development of a harmonised and reliable sustainability data ecosystem,” stated EIOPA.
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