Companies are under increasing social, regulatory and economic pressure in almost all sectors to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (“GHG emissions”) and to think about their contribution to climate protection. Pars pro toto from a legal point of view is the classification of economic activities as environmentally sustainable or non-sustainable according to the EU Taxonomy Regulation as well as upcoming detailed reporting obligations pursuant to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD”). After its implementation into national law, particularly large limited-liability companies will be obliged to describe in their annual reporting pursuant to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), inter alia:
Independent of already existing, if less detailed, reporting obligations of large capital-market-oriented companies and possible further-reaching obligations in the future (see for example Art. 15, 25 of the draft Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“CSDDD”) proposed by the EU Commission in February 2022), many companies have already adopted plans to reduce their GHG emissions and report on such plans in more or less detail.
Climate change litigation exerts considerably additional pressure on companies to focus on their GHG emissions. A comprehensive climate strategy should therefore also consider the risks associated with this kind of litigation.
The subsequent ADVANT FAQs explain why.
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