INTEREPO’s Knowledge Platform now features Policy Report No. 1, “Integrated Reporting in the EU: History, Standards and the Relationship between ESRS and IFRS.” The report opens the project’s series of analytical publications on corporate reporting and its relevance to Ukraine.
The report traces a change in what companies are expected to explain. Financial statements remain essential, but users also need comparable information on sustainability risks, corporate impacts and governance. This wider view helps investors, employees, public authorities and other readers assess how a company operates and what may affect its future.
The report examines two core EU documents: the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). It sets out their distinct roles. The directive provides the legal framework; the standards specify what companies disclose. The report also explains double materiality, which covers both sustainability matters that affect a company and the company’s impacts on people and the environment. EUR-Lex
A further section addresses the relationship between ESRS and IFRS. It distinguishes IFRS Accounting Standards from the sustainability disclosure standards IFRS S1 and IFRS S2. Drawing on the joint EFRAG–IFRS Foundation interoperability guidance, the report considers where ESRS and IFRS S1/S2 align and where additional disclosures may be needed. Their alignment can reduce duplicated work; it does not make the two sets of requirements interchangeable. ifrs.org
For Ukraine, these distinctions have direct value in teaching and professional practice. Students and practitioners need to interpret EU rules, assess reporting data and follow changes in the standards without confusing proposals with requirements in force. INTEREPO’s first policy report provides a starting point for that work through a concise account of the history, current framework and issues ahead.
Read Policy Report No. 1 on the INTEREPO Knowledge Platform.
INTEREPO, “EU Integrated Reporting: Bridging Finance, Sustainability and Governance,” is implemented by Sumy National Agrarian University and co-funded by the European Union.
