ESRS 1 is the architecture for preparing the sustainability statement. ESRS 2 is the cross-cutting set of general disclosures that companies in CSRD scope must use across sustainability matters.
Use this page to separate general requirements, general disclosures, materiality-driven topical disclosures, and the evidence needed to make the statement readable and reviewable.
Structured answer sets in this page tree.
Cited legal and guidance references.
ESRS 1 and ESRS 2 are the two cross-cutting ESRS standards. ESRS 1 explains how the standards work: categories of standards, double materiality, value-chain coverage, time horizons, presentation of the sustainability statement, incorporation by reference, and qualitative characteristics of information. ESRS 2 contains the general disclosure requirements for governance, strategy, impact, risk and opportunity management, and metrics and targets.
ESRS 1 does not work like a topical checklist. Its role is to explain the architecture of ESRS, the drafting conventions and fundamental concepts, and the general requirements for preparing and presenting sustainability information under the Accounting Directive as amended by CSRD.
For a reporting team, ESRS 1 is the control framework for deciding how the sustainability statement is built. It sets the logic for double materiality, the reporting undertaking and value chain, time horizons, estimates and uncertainty, prior-period errors, structure of the sustainability statement, and incorporation by reference.
ESRS 2 is the general-disclosures standard. It applies regardless of sector and across sustainability topics. It covers the reporting areas defined by ESRS 1: governance, strategy, impact, risk and opportunity management, and metrics and targets.
ESRS 2 is where a reader should find the general information needed to understand the undertaking's sustainability statement: the basis for preparation, governance arrangements, strategy and business model context, stakeholder views, material impacts, risks and opportunities, the materiality-assessment process, and the list of ESRS disclosure requirements included in the statement.
The relationship between ESRS 1 and ESRS 2 matters because most topical disclosures depend on the undertaking's materiality assessment, while ESRS 2 general disclosures and specified IRO-1-related topical requirements are disclosed irrespective of the outcome of that assessment.
The Commission Q&A explains the practical distinction: ESRS 2 remains mandatory, while the other standards and individual disclosure requirements and datapoints are generally subject to materiality. That does not make material disclosures optional. If the information is material, it must be reported, and the materiality assessment process is itself subject to external assurance under the Accounting Directive.
A useful report file should connect each ESRS 2 disclosure to the ESRS 1 rule that makes the disclosure understandable, verifiable, comparable, and complete. The point is not to create a separate ESRS 1 chapter in the final statement; it is to make the ESRS 2 and topical disclosures follow the ESRS 1 preparation rules.
The report file should let a decision owner or assurance provider trace from materiality judgment to ESRS disclosure requirement, data source, owner, control, and final report location.
Use the ESRS 1 rules to make each ESRS 2 disclosure traceable to materiality judgments, data sources, report locations, owners, and review evidence.
The most common mistake is treating ESRS 1 and ESRS 2 as two introductory pages before the real topical work starts. Under ESRS, they are the logic that determines what the whole sustainability statement contains and how a reader can trust it.
Another mistake is using materiality as a deletion exercise. ESRS materiality requires a documented judgment about material matters and material information; it does not support omitting difficult information simply because the data collection is immature.
"avoid generic boilerplate information"
"comparable and reliable sustainability information"