The EU Taxonomy Regulation and the CSRD Directive impose a number of requirements on companies related to financial and non-financial reporting in the context of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. The new obligations will cover both large companies employing over 500 employees and some entities from the SME sector. The submission of reports by the first group of companies will be mandatory as early as 2025. What specific areas of activity will the reporting cover? We invite you to read.
SDGs, ESG, CSR are abbreviations that have recently gained publicity in the context of the responsibility and obligations of companies, including legal and accounting, management, as well as development and strategic, relating to sustainable development. This is related to the need for a different approach to the development of societies, management, production and use of goods, due to the unfavorable climate changes taking place in the world and social inequalities for which humans and their activities are responsible.
Currently, humanity must face many environmental challenges, such as the shrinking of non-renewable resources, the loss of biodiversity, the degradation of the Earth, limited access to clean drinking water. And also cope with the growth of many social problems such as hunger, social unrest or even conflicts over access to shrinking resources. The above problems overlap with other unfavorable phenomena: poverty, inequality, lack of access to education or basic health care. We can say with full responsibility that as humanity we are at a turning point, when we must choose a different path of development, based on respect and well-being for the environment and people.
UN unanimously adopts Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for implementation
The above problems and threats motivate governments to take legislative steps, and the most important decision on a global scale to change the approach to actions taken by citizens was the adoption at the New York summit in 2015 by the UN General Assembly of the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, i.e. development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. All UN countries (193) have committed to meeting the goals to change the direction of world development to one that is responsible for the Planet, People and the Environment. The 2030 Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) along with 169 detailed tasks from five areas – people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership.
The Sustainable Development Agenda is a direction and concept of socio-economic development based on conscious decisions, i.e. decisions that take into account not only the economic aspect (not limited to profit), but also the social aspect concerning high quality of life, health and well-being with social justice, the environmental aspect related to maintaining the Earth’s capacity to support life in all its diversity and broadly understood corporate governance, which support each other.
Rafał Szarzała Centrum Produkcyjno-Handlowe “Szarpol”
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