French regulator names firms with good sustainability reporting practices

France’s financial regulator has praised a handful of companies for their approach to reporting in line with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

AMF published a report outlining its recent efforts to assess and shape the sustainability disclosures of French companies, including reports under the EU Taxonomy and Non-Financial Reporting Directive, and early CSRD reports.

Between 2023 and 2024, AMF’s staff examined 41 firms’ 2022/23 statements and sent each one an overview of its thoughts, including requests for corrections.

Altogether it flagged 385 issues, which it refers to as “comments”.

Most of the feedback focused on climate change or environmental topics, and the biggest complaints were about the lack of relevance of disclosures, the omission of relevant information, problems around the transparency of the methodology, and too limited a reporting scope.

On the positive side, AMF praised Schneider Electric and Hermès for the way they talked about their target-setting.

L’Oréal showed good practice by presenting a summary of all its targets, performance metrics and results alongside previous results, the regulator said.

“The targets are quantified and the time horizon is clearly defined. When there is no metric for monitoring the target, the company indicates this and provides information about its forthcoming definition.”

Bureau Veritas was namechecked for explaining the decarbonisation levers associated with its climate change mitigation strategy, and Kering for describing actions to support its supply chain policies.

AMF commended Michelin for showing how much it was investing into implementing its climate transition plan, and Air Liquide for its approach to internal training and education.

“The large number of examples and good practices presented in this report are testament to issuers’ gradual appropriation of certain ESRS requirements,” the report observed. “These examples can help companies to implement the CSRD.”

Last week, Luxembourg’s financial regulator spelled out its enforcement priorities as it prepares for the first round of CSRD reports.

The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) stressed the need for “connectivity” between sustainability and financial statements, and said references to amounts disclosed in sustainability reports “should link to relevant sections of the financial statements, ensuring consistency and transparency across both reports”.