Europe’s accounting rule-maker has proposed a sweeping rewrite of its sustainability reporting standards that could ease compliance costs for companies supplying the EU from across Africa—without letting them off the hook on climate, environmental and social performance.
The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) on 31 July opened a 60-day consultation on revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) that slash mandatory datapoints by 57% and total disclosures by 68%, with final technical advice due to the European Commission by 30 November 2025. For African exporters linked to EU value chains—from cocoa and coffee to textiles, automotive components and critical minerals—the changes could mean leaner reporting packs, clearer priorities and, potentially, faster routes to market.
The recalibration follows a European Commission request earlier this year to simplify the ESRS adopted in 2023 under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. EFRAG’s drafts streamline the “double materiality” assessment that asks companies to report on both their impacts on people and planet and on sustainability risks to their business.
They eliminate voluntary disclosures, reduce overlaps between topic-specific standards, clarify technical language and add cost-relief exemptions where reporting would require disproportionate effort. The overall length of the standards has been cut by more than half. For African firms that already provide data to EU customers or that are preparing to list, raise capital or sell into Europe, the proposals promise fewer checklists and more focus on what is genuinely material.
African stakeholders will watch two issues closely: how far simplification lowers transaction costs, and whether comparability and investor confidence are maintained. Under the current regime, many Africa-based suppliers compile bespoke data packs for multiple EU buyers, a duplication that punishes smaller businesses. By narrowing the field of required metrics and clarifying definitions, the revised ESRS could allow suppliers in Accra, Abidjan, Nairobi or Gaborone to build a single, auditable dataset that travels through the chain—from farm or mine site to processor to European retailer—reducing the need for parallel reporting templates.
The implications differ by sector; Agrifood exporters are likely to benefit from clearer guardrails on scope, which could streamline reporting on deforestation-free sourcing, water use and labour standards. In apparel, where European brands already enforce detailed factory data, a tighter standard may shorten audit cycles while preserving scrutiny of wages, hours and health and safety. For mining and metals—particularly copper, cobalt, manganese, graphite and platinum group metals that feed European clean-tech manufacturing—the proposals arrive alongside renewed EU interest in resilient, transparent supply chains. A simplified ESRS can support African miners and refiners in demonstrating responsible production, traceability and community impacts without drowning in duplicative indicators.
Energy and heavy industry suppliers face a different calculus. Even with fewer datapoints, expectations on greenhouse-gas accounting, transition planning and pollution controls remain. African utilities, cement makers and steel fabricators aiming to sell into the EU or supply EU-linked projects will still need credible baselines and improvement trajectories. The upside is that by focusing reporting on what matters most, the standards may make it easier to link disclosures to finance—green bonds, sustainability-linked loans and blended-finance facilities—lowering the cost of capital for credible transition plans.
EFRAG’s leaders frame the revisions as a pragmatic reset. Chair Patrick de Cambourg said the goal is a “focused, usable” system that supports resilience and investment rather than overburdening companies. Chiara Del Prete, who heads the technical expert group, characterized the drafts as lessons learned from early application: simplify where possible, keep ambition where necessary, and use the consultation to stress-test what remains. Outreach events are scheduled for September and October, and EFRAG is running field tests and a cost-benefit analysis in parallel.
For African business associations, regulators and sustainability professionals, the consultation window through 29 September is an opening to shape rules that will reverberate across value chains. Submissions could push for clearer small-supplier accommodations, guidance on data collection in low-infrastructure contexts, and explicit recognition of regional standards and certification schemes already in use on the continent. Governments and stock exchanges pursuing domestic ESG codes may also align their own frameworks with the simplified ESRS to reduce friction for issuers targeting European investors.
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The proposed rewrite will not remove the need for robust governance, reliable data and independent assurance. But if the final standards land as intended—simpler to apply, sharper on materiality and easier to compare—they could lower the reporting barrier for thousands of African companies tied to the EU economy. That would free up scarce resources for the work that matters: cutting emissions, improving labour outcomes, managing water and biodiversity, and building resilient, investable businesses that can scale in Europe-linked markets.
