Voluntary Sustainability Report as a Shield Against Bureaucracy

Even without a legal requirement, a sustainability report can give SMEs a decisive competitive advantage. The voluntary VSME standard helps companies respond efficiently to inquiries from major business partners and promote transparency in the supply chain. The SKZ Plastics Center provides comprehensive support to companies in this process—from analyzing relevant key performance indicators to producing the final documentation.

On February 26, the EU Council finally adopted the Omnibus I package, thereby ending the uncertainty surrounding sustainability reporting requirements. Companies with 1,000 or more employees or net revenue of 450M Euros or more are required to publish a sustainability report. These companies now need sustainability information not only about their own activities but also about those of their supply chain. With the voluntary reporting standard VSME, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been given a shield to efficiently handle the requests of their large business partners.

The Omnibus I package thus reduces the number of affected companies by approximately 90 %, but at the same time places greater emphasis on voluntary sustainability reporting (Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non-listed SMEs (VSME)). Although the sustainability report is voluntary, it becomes a strategic advantage – a sort of “shield” – against the “trickle-down effect.” This is because many companies subject to mandatory reporting now require sustainability information from their suppliers in order to meet their own reporting and disclosure obligations. In practice, this has typically been done through comprehensive surveys directed at sustainability management or executive management. These teams then have their hands full collecting the necessary data internally and compiling it individually.

With the update to regulatory requirements under the Omnibus Regulation, larger companies will in future only be permitted to request sustainability information from their suppliers that is also included in the VSME sustainability report. For small and medium-sized enterprises, this represents a significant efficiency gain: instead of responding to extensive individual requests from their customers, they can simply refer to their VSME report, which bundles all relevant information. SMEs that have already established internal structures for data collection and systematically documented their key performance indicators in the VSME format are thus well prepared.

The VSME standard is divided into modules covering the areas of “General,” “Environment,” “Social,” and “Corporate Governance.” In addition to eleven basic modules, nine comprehensive modules are available. In total, the standard comprises around 40 data points in the basic modules and 33 in the comprehensive modules. In contrast to the complex double materiality analysis required for CSRD reporting, the VSME takes a significantly simpler approach: for individual indicators, only an “if applicable” principle applies.

The Regional Competence Center KARE prepares VSME sustainability reports for plastics processing and recycling companies. Experience to date shows that the data required for the approximately 20 modules can be efficiently collected – for example, from existing ISO certifications. The SKZ provides comprehensive support to companies in this process: from analyzing relevant key performance indicators and structuring the content to producing the final documentation in accordance with the VSME standard.

“Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, having their own sustainability report offers the opportunity to position themselves professionally both organizationally and communicatively, to highlight their own achievements, and at the same time to significantly reduce the effort involved in responding to customer inquiries,” explains Jonathan Lambers, Group Leader for Transformation of the Plastics Industry at the SKZ.

(Source: SKZ – The Plastics Centre)