Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
Daily news about corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability

European Commission Introduces NFR Directive Into CSR Reporting Guidelines



10/09/2017

The focus of risks in regards to the company will shift to the people involved, as the new guidelines highlights transparency of human rights that expands into the supply chains.


Dailycsr.com – 04 October 2017 – Businesses can effectively include sustainability in their process of taking decision with the NFR or “Non-Financial Reporting” system which will help in identifying “critical ESG issues, risks and opportunities”, reports Sangeeta Waldron.
 
Moreover, with NFR system, companies will be able to involve “various stakeholders” into “constructive dialogue” regarding the impacts made by their respective businesses. Recently, the European Commission came out with an “NFR Directive”, whereby from the year of 2017 as many as “8,000 large EU companies” will annually report on “their major ESG risks, respect for human rights, anti-corruption issues, and board diversity”.
 
The first report under NFR Directive will appear in the year of 2018 wherein companies will publish information regarding their “global impacts”, policies regarding them, as well as “due diligence procedures for addressing those impacts”. While, Waldron writes:
“The EU Commission has now released a set of guidelines to help companies comply with both the spirit and letter of this EU Directive on Non-Financial Reporting. The guidelines have been welcomed by the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), the WWF European Policy Office and Amnesty International”.
 
The above mentioned guidelines clarifies the “application of the Directive” and prevents boilerplating of the reporting disclosure, whereby particularly emphasising on the “need to report on supply chains and other business relationships”. Waldron reports that the senior executive officer of Amnesty International, Nele Meyer thinks that “the guidelines deliver a clear and direct message to businesses that they must be transparent about risks of human rights abuse in their supply chains. They must also allow people who are potential victims to understand if their rights are at risk”.
 
Codifying the standards that are “globally recognised” for corporate human rights reporting, the “UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” have inspired the above mentioned guidelines. While, the NFR Directive has been responsible for introducing a shift that takes the reporting purpose from “the risk” regarding the “company alone” to the “people into account”.
 
Moreover, the guidelines pushes companies into disclosing “forward looking information based on climate scenario analysis”. In Waldron’s words:
“Jerome Chaplier, ECCJ Coordinator, said that these new corporate disclosure rules are part of a fundamental shift in assessing corporate performance and mark a significant step forward for improved corporate transparency”.
 
 
 
 
References:
ethicalperformance.com