CSRD specialist at Maersk predicts ‘tug of war’ between auditors and firms

Wave One companies in ‘limbo’ between old and new ESRS

An ESG specialist at one of the world’s biggest shipping companies has predicted a new “tug-of-war” between Wave One companies preparing their second mandatory reports under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and their auditors. 

The EU’s advisory body, EFRAG, is currently consulting on a drastic overhaul of its disclosure standards, to make them simpler. The new version is expected to be introduced before the next reporting season.    

But Prianka Christiansen, the ESG reporting manager for Maersk, said the update leaves companies that have already reported using the original standards in “a limbo position”. 

Speaking on a webinar on Thursday, Christiansen said: “We’re naturally in this position now where we can see the exposure drafts, and we’re looking at those and thinking, can we implement some of these things already, even though the auditors might not or cannot allow it [because they haven’t been adopted yet]?”.

“There will probably be a little bit of a tug-of-war between companies and auditors this year, particularly Wave One reporters,” she added, referring to the firms that have already reported in 2025.  

Christiansen encouraged her peers to think about why it would be appropriate to remove certain indicators that were deemed material enough to include in the first CSRD reports, just because EFRAG changed the underlying standards. 

Speaking on the same webinar, EFRAG’s technical manager, Liad Ortar, highlighted the importance of plans to relegate some information to the appendices of sustainability statements.  

As it stands, if a firm reports on a sustainability topic elsewhere – for example, through ESG rating questionnaires or disclosures to via CDP – it must communicate on that topic in its main CSRD disclosures.  

But under the proposed revisions, this information could be shared in an appendix, which would prevent auditors from treating it in the same way as information the company deems material.

Ortar said this had “created a huge burden” for firms in the first round of reporting. 

EFRAG also announced on Thursday that it will run a dedicated outreach session for companies on September 10th, in order to gather further feedback on the proposals.