VS makes ESG reporting simple and manageable for small and medium-sized businesses.
What exactly do you need to report when it comes to ESG? And why is VS much simpler than many people think?
VS (previously VSME) is a voluntary standard recommended by the EU that makes it easier for businesses to collect and share their ESG data. Lotte Hansen, CEO at Hansen Agenda, explains:
“VS is a set of voluntary standards for small and medium-sized businesses that want to report on ESG. It outlines a range of requirements for reporting on environmental, social and governance matters. [...] Overall, VS is the EU’s first attempt to provide a framework for sustainability reporting for all those businesses that are not actually required to report under CSRD. And it is remarkably simple. It is much more manageable than many of the approaches we have seen elsewhere, and it marks the first time we have had a consistent, standardised framework across the board.”
In practice, VS is about data that most businesses already have access to. For example, what does your electricity bill tell you? How much of your electricity comes from solar and wind energy? Your energy provider can supply this information, and these are the types of data you need to enter when reporting under VS. When it comes to the social (S) aspect of VS, you can find relevant data by looking at your payroll records or simply speaking with your HR department.
VS also plays an important role in connecting small and large businesses.
“The Omnibus proposal makes it clear that VS is intended to serve as the link between large and small businesses. Small businesses that provide the data outlined in VS – the voluntary standard – can be confident that they are supplying the ESG data that larger companies need for their CSRD reporting. Likewise, large companies can be confident that by collecting this data from smaller businesses, they have sufficient ESG information to meet their CSRD reporting requirements.”
Ellen Marie Friis Johansen, Head of CSR at the Danish Chamber of Commerce