One of the biggest issues swirling around the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) world is the dispersion of regulations and the lack of specificity criteria that make it extremely difficult to develop sustainable development plans and policies in companies.
From 2025 the new CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) regulation will begin to apply and was discussed at the table How ESG regulation faces 2025 as part of the IV ESG Forum organized by elEconomista.es. The symposium included the participation of specialists in the field such as Pablo Bascones, partner responsible for sustainability and climate change at PwC; Andrea González, director of Spainsif; Sonsoles Santamaría, general business manager of Tressis and Verónica Sanz, sustainability certification expert.
Credibility and investor confidence in sustainability criteria was one of the points most emphasized by experts. As they have pointed out, in recent years There has been an increase in customer interest and demand for these products, but the lack of clarity around regulation has also generated distrust.. In this sense, for demand to continue to increase, at Pwc, Pablo Bascones emphasizes that it is essential to “clarify the rules”. For her part, Andrea González believes that the conversation is not there yet: “We have not reached the part of the conversation in which the customer is wary of the products offered to them. First, we need to be able to show this product. by game we have to show the product before the customer makes requests based on their expectations.
From Tressis, they expected that with the entry into force of green MiFID, we would experience a boom of demand for financial products, but this has not happened, due to the complexity of the test, and this even causes a certain rejection. However, according to Sonsoles Santamaría, “when the client says they don’t have preferences, it’s because they don’t know how to choose, not because they don’t want to. With the help of the advisor and with education on the nuances of these sustainable products, the introduction of this type of product into portfolios is increasing.; “We are seeing a gradual increase in portfolio sustainability through the advisor’s conversation with the client.” For her part, Verónica Sanz affirms that “to increase interest and meet the expectations of investors, these sustainability criteria must be truly met.”
The CSRD will come into force in 2025 and gradually, with the aim of achieving greater standardization of all these criteria. Thus, the largest companies will be the ones that begin to apply this new law in their reports next year and will be the first to face the obstacles that the standard could generate.
Bascones explains that with this new law there will be new techniques for verifying sustainability information and a more complex process of homogeneity of all this data. “The first companies are prepared for the first report, but for the following years they have to solve the problems gaps “that internal control systems and tools are identified and implemented”, he explains. For Sanz, the biggest challenge of this new law will be the volume and he believes that in this first report “companies will save the furniture”.
Managers like Spainsif and Tressis point out that The biggest challenge for CSRD will be at the bottom of the value chain.while small and medium-sized businesses must also be accountable and do not have sufficient means to cope with this process.
In this sense, Santamaría asks “to give a new twist, so as not to leave anyone behind” and to have greater interoperability of standards, also taking into account interest groups during legislation. For his part, González demands public sustainability labels for voluntary use of products.
