News from the European Commission - June 2019

As part of its Sustainable Finance Action Plan^[1], the Commission launched a targeted consultation^[2] with the objective to finalise new guidelines for company reporting on climate-related information. This consultation proposes ways to assess how climate change can impact the financial performance of companies, as well as how companies can have a positive and negative impact on the climate. It builds on the report published in January by the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance^[3], and stakeholders' responses to the call for feedback on that report. Once finalised, the new guidelines on climate reporting will supplement the existing guidelines on non-financial reporting^[4] that the Commission published in 2017. They are intended for use by companies that fall under the scope of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive^[5], which means large listed companies, banks and insurance companies, with more than 500 employees. The Commission intends to publish the final version of the guidelines by the end of June.

Read ecoDa’s response on the public consultation: https://ecoda.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/20190318_The_Consultation_Document_on_the_Update_of_the_Guidelines_on_Non-financial_Reporting.pdf

The FSMA published its study on the compliance of Belgian listed companies with their obligations to publish a statement of non-financial information (Dutch and French only)
https://www.fsma.be/nl/studies-en-documenten

Public consultation on Guidelines on the standardised presentation of the remuneration report

The Shareholders’ Rights Directive II^[6] requires in its Article 9b that companies (which have their registered office in a Member State and the shares of which are admitted to trading on a regulated market situated or operating within a Member State) draw up a clear and understandable remuneration report ('the report'), providing a comprehensive overview of the remuneration of their directors. According to the Directive, the report shall include all benefits in whatever form, awarded or due during the most recent financial year to individual directors, including to newly recruited and to former directors, in accordance with the company's remuneration policy. Article 9b(6) of the Directive gives a mandate to the Commission to adopt guidelines to specify the standardised presentation of the Report with a view to ensuring harmonisation in this regard. The Commission has been consulting^[7] on these non-binding guidelines.

Read ecoDa’s response on the public consultation: https://ecoda.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/20190318_ecoDa_Comments_to_EC_Consultation_on_Guidelines_for_Remuneration_Reports.pdf

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/180308-action-plan-sustainable-growth_en

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/finance-2019-non-financial-reporting-guidelines_en

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/sustainable-finance-technical-expert-group_en

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/170626-non-financial-reporting-guidelines_en

[5] https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/non-financial-reporting_en

[6] Directive 2007/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 of July 2007 on the exercise of certain rights of shareholders in listed companies, as amended by Directive (EU) 2017/828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 May 2017 as regards the encouragement of long-term shareholder engagement https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32017L0828

[7] https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-remuneration-report-guidelines-implementing-shareholders-rights-directive_en