open letter to the European Commission
Grounding EU sustainability reporting in science: A call for action
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Beatrice Crona, Science director and Professor at the Centre, is one of the key authors behind a recently published Open Letter to the European Commission, signed by 44 leading academics in sustainability reporting.
The letter comes at a critical juncture, ahead of the EU’s legislative simplification package slated for February 2025. It underscores the urgent need to integrate scientific rigor into the EU’s corporate sustainability reporting framework, aiming to balance streamlined disclosures with high-quality, actionable data.
This is a call to legislators and corporate leaders: collaborate with the scientific community to build a reporting framework that is robust, streamlined, and transformative.
Key points from the letter include:
• The call for science-based sustainability reporting to enhance data relevance and reduce reporting burdens.
• Proposals for simplifying disclosures by focusing on essential environmental metrics.
• The need for standardized, mandatory disclosures to ensure comparability and reliability of environmental data.
• Prioritization of key environmental impacts, like carbon emissions and water use, even if not immediately material to individual companies.
• Emphasizing collaboration between policymakers and scientists to create cost-efficient and effective reporting standards.
The letter is an initiative that comes from FinBio, a Mistra project led by Stockholm Resilience Centre.