The draft revised ESRS has been out for public consultation since 6 May. The window closed on 3 June. And here’s the part that matters: if your company already reports under CSRD, you have a decision to make for financial year 2026.
This isn’t distant regulatory theory. It’s a concrete choice, with a date attached.
What actually happened
On 6 May 2026 the European Commission published the draft delegated act containing the revised ESRS, the ones many people are already calling “ESRS 2.0”, and opened a four-week public consultation that closed on 3 June. It’s one of the final steps in the Omnibus I package that began in February 2025 to simplify sustainability reporting across the EU.
The Commission has said it will adopt the final act “as soon as possible” after the consultation closes, aiming for summer 2026 (likely late June or July). Worth keeping the target and the deadline separate: the legal limit is six months from the Omnibus entering into force, that’s 17 September 2026. Summer is the intention; September is the hard stop.
Once the Commission adopts it, the act goes through scrutiny by Parliament and Council (two months, extendable by another two) before publication in the Official Journal and entry into force.
And the ESRS aren’t moving alone. This same week the EUDR product scope consultation and CBAM (implementing act) are moving too. It’s the Omnibus simplification machinery turning on several fronts at once. The sense that “this never stops changing” is real, and it’s exactly why it pays to have a foundation for multi-framework reporting you don’t have to rebuild every time a text changes.
The cut: fewer boxes, same data underneath
The figure that’ll grab the headlines: the draft cuts mandatory datapoints by more than 60%, and total datapoints by more than 70%. The materiality assessment is simplified towards a more proportionate, principles-based approach. And interoperability with global standards improves.
Sounds like relief. And it is, in form-filling volume. But here’s the trap a lot of companies fall into: fewer boxes to fill doesn’t mean less data to hold. The boxes that remain still need real, traceable information connected to your operations. The cut changes how much you report, not the nature of what sits underneath.
The decision: FY2026 or FY2027?
This is the part that affects anyone already in scope.
By default, the revised ESRS apply to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027. But companies already reporting under the current ESRS (Wave 1) can choose to apply the simplified framework for FY2026, reported in 2027.
In other words: you can move a year early and benefit from the simplifications sooner.
The asterisk matters. That option depends on two things: the Commission adopting the act in time, and CSRD being transposed into national law within the relevant deadline. It’s not “available now, no strings”. It’s “available if the timelines hold”. Until the delegated act is published in the Official Journal, the drafts don’t apply, and you shouldn’t build your reporting on a text that can still change.
What this means for you
If you’re Wave 1, the question isn’t “do I report or not?”. It’s “under which version, and from when?”. And to answer it, you need to know what data you’ve already connected and what’s missing.
Companies that did their double materiality assessment some time ago and structured their data collection arrive at this decision with room to breathe. The ones with data scattered across spreadsheets arrive sprinting, again.
Because in the end the problem was never the form. Cutting boxes by 60% solves nothing if the data inside still isn’t connected to your purchasing, your suppliers, your fleet, your energy. The form changes every time the regulation changes. The data doesn’t. If your operations are connected, it makes no difference whether you fill in 1,000 boxes or 400, the data is already there.
Do you know today whether you could report FY2026 under the new framework without rebuilding anything? If the answer isn’t a clear yes, that’s your next conversation. Book a demo and we’ll map it with you.