DataSolmu blog
What Early ESRS Reports Can and Cannot Teach
A review of how early ESRS reporting practice can help companies learn without becoming a copy-paste template.
Early ESRS reports are valuable because they show how companies organize unfamiliar disclosure requirements under real deadlines. They reveal practical pressure points: ownership, materiality explanations, value-chain boundaries, data gaps, assurance preparation, and the relationship between narrative and metrics.
They are less useful when treated as templates. A disclosure that makes sense for one company may be misleading for another because the facts, sector, governance structure, and materiality assessment are different.
What Companies Can Learn
Early reporting practice can help teams ask better questions:
- How are companies structuring sustainability statements?
- Where do they explain materiality judgements?
- Which topics require cross-functional data?
- How do they describe uncertainty or incomplete information?
- Which disclosures appear to require stronger evidence control?
- Where do finance and sustainability information need to connect?
These questions help a company design its own reporting process.
What Companies Should Not Copy
The most obvious risk is copying tone or wording. The deeper risk is copying judgement. If another company discloses a topic in a particular way, that does not prove the same treatment is right for a different company.
A report reflects its own context: sector, geography, business model, value chain, materiality process, data maturity, assurance approach, and management judgement. Those conditions are not transferable by default.
From Examples To Better Questions
The best use of early ESRS practice is to convert examples into questions:
- What evidence would our company need for this topic?
- Which owner would provide it?
- Would our boundary be the same?
- Would our materiality conclusion be different?
- What explanation would a reviewer expect?
- What would need to change before this disclosure is assurance-ready?
This turns observed practice into learning rather than imitation.
Practical Takeaway
Early ESRS reports should be read like field notes from implementation. They help companies see where reporting becomes difficult, but they do not replace company-specific analysis. The useful lesson is not "say it like they said it." The useful lesson is "understand what evidence and judgement made that disclosure possible."