| Scope boundary | CSRD scope follows the Accounting Directive reporting categories as amended by CSRD, including large undertakings, listed SMEs other than micro-undertakings, and parent undertakings of large groups according to the applicable provisions. | Article 8 applies to undertakings subject to the obligation to publish sustainability information under Articles 19a or 29a of the Accounting Directive, and asks for information on how and to what extent activities are associated with environmentally sustainable economic activities. | Start with the CSRD or Accounting Directive reporting obligation, then decide which Article 8 template and KPI rules apply. Do not run Article 8 as a standalone voluntary green-claim test. |
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| Covered actors | CSRD reporting explains material impacts, risks, and opportunities across environmental, social, human rights, and governance matters under ESRS. | Article 8 reporting explains taxonomy eligibility and alignment by reference to environmentally sustainable economic activities and the prescribed KPI framework. | Do not treat a taxonomy-aligned activity as a complete ESRS disclosure. ESRS still requires materiality-based narrative, metrics, policies, actions, targets, and basis-of-preparation disclosures where applicable. |
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| Trigger | ESRS uses double materiality: a sustainability matter is material if it is material from the impact perspective, the financial perspective, or both. | Taxonomy alignment is an activity-level classification and disclosure exercise under the Taxonomy Regulation and its delegated acts, including technical screening and KPI presentation rules. | Keep two audit trails: one for the ESRS materiality assessment and one for taxonomy eligibility, alignment, KPI calculations, and template presentation. The same CapEx or OpEx item may be relevant to both, but the tests are different. |
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| Core obligations | ESRS metrics depend on the relevant topical standard and materiality conclusions. Some ESRS taxonomy datapoints also identify relationships between significant CapEx or OpEx disclosures and taxonomy KPI or CapEx-plan information. | For non-financial undertakings, Article 8 KPI disclosures use turnover, capital expenditure, and operating expenditure. Financial undertakings have separate KPI methodologies and templates. | Finance, sustainability, and consolidation teams should reconcile taxonomy KPI inputs to ESRS financial links instead of pasting taxonomy percentages into ESRS tables without explanation. |
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| Evidence record | CSRD evidence should support the ESRS basis of preparation, materiality assessment, value-chain boundaries, policies, actions, targets, and sustainability statement disclosures. | Article 8 evidence should support activity mapping, taxonomy eligibility and alignment conclusions, KPI numerator and denominator calculations, templates, qualitative explanations, and any CapEx plan treatment. | A shared data room can work, but each source file should say whether it supports an ESRS disclosure, an Article 8 KPI, or both. This prevents a taxonomy calculation from being over-read as a materiality conclusion. |
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| Timing and deadlines | CSRD introduced electronic reporting and markup obligations for sustainability reporting in the management report. | Article 8 disclosures are included in the same digital sustainability reporting package and are covered by the Article 8 XBRL taxonomy work that maps delegated-act templates into machine-readable format. | Plan tagging as one reporting package with two content models: ESRS XBRL taxonomy for ESRS disclosures and Article 8 XBRL taxonomy for taxonomy disclosure templates. |
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| Enforcement | Use CSRD and ESRS to decide what the sustainability statement must explain about material sustainability matters, including impacts, risks, opportunities, governance, strategy, policies, actions, targets, and metrics. | Use Article 8 to decide which taxonomy activities, KPIs, templates, methodology, and qualitative explanations must be included for the undertaking type. | The clean handoff is: scope the CSRD reporting obligation, run the ESRS materiality and disclosure analysis, run the Article 8 taxonomy KPI workstream for the same reporting perimeter where required, then reconcile overlaps before assurance and digital tagging. |
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| Overlap and reuse | CSRD reporting explains material impacts, risks, and opportunities across environmental, social, human rights, and governance matters under ESRS. | Article 8 reporting explains taxonomy eligibility and alignment by reference to environmentally sustainable economic activities and the prescribed KPI framework. | A taxonomy-aligned activity can support ESRS metrics, but it does not replace the ESRS narrative, materiality assessment, or value-chain analysis. Reuse the same underlying evidence only where it still answers the separate ESRS question. |
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| Practical decision rule | ESRS reporting explains material impacts, risks, and opportunities across environmental, social, human rights, and governance matters under ESRS. | Article 8 reporting explains taxonomy eligibility and alignment by reference to environmentally sustainable economic activities and the prescribed KPI framework. | First decide whether the issue is material under ESRS. Then decide whether it is also a Taxonomy activity and which Article 8 KPI template applies. If one data set serves both, keep the ESRS disclosure and the Article 8 calculation separate and label the linkage clearly. |
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