What 905 ESRS statements reveal about ESG reporting in Europe
EFRAG has published the 2026 edition of its State of Play report, an evidence-based assessment of ESRS implementation drawing on 905 assured FY2025 sustainability statements, up from 656 in the inaugural edition, and evaluated against an expanded set of 18 questions that, for the first time, extend to governance disclosures. Published amid the Omnibus simplification debate, the report deliberately takes no position on the outcome, positioning itself as essential facts to support the debate.
In the second year of ESRS application, the report shows that practice is stabilising: climate change (E1, 99%), own workforce (S1, 99%) and business conduct (G1, 95%) remain the most frequently material topics, and 82% of companies updated their double materiality assessment. Climate transition planning gained momentum, with the share of companies disclosing a transition plan rising from 55% to 69%, and 57% now reporting near- and long-term targets aligned with a 1.5°C pathway. The average statement shrank from 115 to 95 pages, which can be read as a sign of growing familiarity with the framework, though a gap between declared materiality and strategic commitment persists: companies identify 6.4 material topics on average but set measurable targets for only 3.3.
The methodology behind the report is also worth a closer look: to analyse practice at this scale, EFRAG built a bespoke Generative AI engine (enhanced with an in-kind contribution from Boston Consulting Group), underpinned by manual validation of every result. The findings are available to view in an interactive dashboard that allows you to benchmark by country, sector and topic, offering a glimpse of what routine XBRL tagging of ESRS statements will one day make possible as a simple query rather than a year-long AI research project.
Read more here.
