At the request of the European Commission (EC), expressly confirmed on December 12, 2024, EFRAG is pleased to announce today the delivery of its technical advice on the VSME, the voluntary reporting standard for non-listed micro-, small-, and medium sized undertakings.
From 22 January 2024 to 21 May 2024, EFRAG conducted a public consultation on the Exposure Draft of the VSME, receiving input from a wide number of stakeholders, including SMEs, SME associations, banks, banking associations, large undertakings, accountants, national standard setters and other stakeholders. The EFRAG SR TEG and the EFRAG SRB have addressed the feedback emerged from the public consultation and implemented additional simplifications. The VSME was approved by EFRAG SRB on 13 November 2024 and by EFRAG SR TEG on 22 October 2024.
VSME Standard
The VSME is designed for undertakings that are
not in the mandatory scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (‘CSRD’). EFRAG’s work on the VSME is based on the European Commission’s SME Relief Package of September 2023 which refers to this specific standard as a measure to support SMEs in accessing sustainable finance (“EFRAG will develop a voluntary standard for non-listed SMEs. SMEs can use this to standardise the sustainability Information they wish to report, creating better opportunities to obtain green financing and thus facilitating the transition to a sustainable economy”).
Based on market acceptance, the VSME has been
designed to provide a standardised set of information to replace the current multiple and uncoordinated questionnaires and ESG data requests.
The VSME is structured under a Basic Module and a Comprehensive Module. These two modules are expected to fulfil a substantial part of requests from business partners (i.e., banks, investors and large corporates) that SMEs currently receive. The VSME includes disclosures for undertakings across sectors; a few additional data requests cannot be excluded to reflect the specificities of some sectors.
Next steps
Stakeholders stressed the necessity to complement the VSME with a series
of digital online tools, additional guidance and complementary materials that
would serve to facilitate the uptake of the standard by SMEs and broad market
acceptance. EFRAG in 2025 will activate a series of initiatives, including the
issuance of support guides and educational material, outreaches, awareness
raising events and the monitoring of emerging tools and platforms.