What the first CSRD reporters learned — and how you can apply it

Get CSRD-ready with Sweep

A strong double materiality process links business strategy with ESG priorities. It’s not a one-off study, but a continuous review that evolves with stakeholder expectations, new regulations, and emerging risks.

Example: Voltalia – aligning impact and opportunity

Voltalia, an international energy producer, shows how a clear double materiality assessment can guide both investment and risk management.

Impact materiality: Voltalia identifies its primary positive impacts as producing renewable energy that helps decarbonise national grids and enabling clients to meet their own net-zero targets. Negative impacts, such as emissions embedded in supply chains and manufacturing, are openly disclosed and tracked.
• Financial materiality: On the financial side, Voltalia recognises opportunities from the growing demand for renewable energy and corporate Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), balanced against risks from climate-related physical impacts such as extreme weather and changing regulation.

By linking these insights, Voltalia uses materiality not as a reporting task but as a strategic decision-making tool.

In practice

Start early and update annually. Remember: materiality is the compass that keeps your CSRD report – and your sustainability strategy – on course.

How Sweep supports this step

Sweep helps you perform your double materiality assessment efficiently and transparently. The platform guides you through:

• Scoring Impacts, Risks, and Opportunities (IROs) using market-standard best practices to quantify materiality across impact and financial dimensions.
• Integrating the relevant datapoints you need for your reporting based on your double materiality results.
• Visualising results as a materiality matrix so you focus on what truly matters.
Generating traceable outputs ready for assurance and disclosure.

Sweep transforms materiality from a manual spreadsheet exercise into a structured, auditable process that can be refined year after year.

2. Build governance that spans the business

CSRD compliance requires collaboration far beyond the sustainability team. The first reporting wave showed that success depends on a governance model that distributes ownership – from board-level oversight down to operational implementation.

Establishing clear roles, committees, and approval flows ensures accountability and avoids bottlenecks. Sustainability data touches finance, HR, procurement, risk, and audit functions. Coordination between them is essential.

Example: Auchan – translating governance into action

Auchan, one of Europe’s largest retailers, has embedded ESG oversight directly into its governance structure.

Auchan (retail, France):
“Our Board’s ESG & Ethics Committee reviews progress on climate, supply chain, and social impact each quarter. Country ESG managers translate group policies into local action, focusing on issues such as food waste, sustainable packaging, and community engagement.”

The company’s Supplier Code of Conduct, covering anti-corruption, fair tax, and whistleblower protection, ensures that sustainability expectations cascade throughout its global network.

In practice

Establish a CSRD steering committee chaired by the CSO or CFO. Appoint topic champions (e.g. climate, workforce, supply chain) responsible for collecting and validating data. Document reporting lines and meeting frequency. Link ESG performance to executive remuneration to reinforce accountability.

How Sweep supports this step

Sweep provides a single source of truth for sustainability governance.

• Clearly define within Sweep the various roles and responsibilities across departments.
• Assign topic owners for climate, social, and governance disclosures.
• Track progress and approval status across framework requirements.
• Maintain a full audit trail of every change and decision for assurance readiness.
  

By integrating sustainability and financial data governance, Sweep ensures that CSRD accountability reaches every part of your business.

3. Set measurable targets aligned with KPIs

The CSRD’s strength lies in its emphasis on data. But without clear KPIs and targets, data is meaningless. Companies that succeed set measurable, time-bound goals aligned with business strategy – and disclose progress transparently.

Example: Voltalia – tracking progress to build credibility

Voltalia publishes detailed year-on-year performance metrics to show progress:

Renewable generation increased to 4.7 TWh, avoiding 1,379 kt CO₂e. Carbon intensity of solar plants fell 10% year-on-year. Biodiversity alignment improved from 44% to 53% of capacity.

This trajectory-based disclosure demonstrates both transparency and commitment, building trust with investors and regulators alike.

Example: Qonto – understanding financed emissions

Qonto, a leading European fintech, discovered that nearly all its climate impact lies beyond its direct operations. Around 98% of its total emissions come from financed activities – the investments and portfolios of its clients.

Qonto (fintech, Europe):

“We want to understand our full footprint in order to act on it. This isn’t a ‘one and done’ activity – it involves continuous improvement, hypotheses, and adjustments to our approach.”

This mindset reflects a core CSRD principle: sustainability reporting isn’t about static disclosure, but about building an evolving understanding of impact. By focusing on Scope 3 emissions, Qonto shows how data-driven insight can turn measurement into meaningful change.

In practice

Define baseline data for each KPI. Disclose trajectories, not just outcomes. Integrate targets into financial and operational planning.

How Sweep supports this step

Sweep automates KPI tracking and performance management across all ESRS categories.

• Collect and calculate Scope 1–3 emissions and other ESG metrics.
• Set targets and initiatives directly in the platform.
• Monitor progress with interactive widgets and live dashboards.
Export verified indicators in CSRD-compliant formats.

With Sweep, sustainability data becomes measurable, actionable, and always aligned with financial performance.

4. Engage your supply chain and broader ecosystem

For most companies, the majority of environmental and social impacts – and many of the biggest risks – lie beyond their own walls. Companies which have already reported via the CSRD emphasised that supplier engagement is essential not only for data collection, but for achieving real emissions reduction and social progress.

The CSRD requires companies to identify and manage impacts across their entire value chain, which means understanding supplier practices, dependencies, and readiness levels. But it also means recognising that these external relationships are part of a wider web of interconnected risks.

His observation underscores a key lesson from those businesses that have already reported via the CSRD: companies that build true resilience engage with their ecosystem as a system – connecting climate, operational, and social dependencies rather than treating them as separate issues.

Example: Voltalia – creating local shared value

Voltalia (energy, France):
“Our goal is to create shared value where we operate. In 2024, 45% of our construction-phase workforce was local, up from 36% in 2023. More than half of our new capacity is now under a Stakeholder Engagement Plan – ensuring communities benefit from our projects.”

By treating engagement as partnership, Voltalia improves acceptance of its projects among communities as well as project resilience – embedding sustainability across its operations and supply chain.

Example: L’Oréal – continuous stakeholder dialogue

L’Oréal demonstrates how supply chain and stakeholder engagement can reinforce both materiality and transparency.

“We place great emphasis on dialogue with stakeholders, incorporating their expectations, interests, and points of view into our strategy. This engagement informs our goals and keeps our sustainability efforts focused.”

L’Oréal’s long-term, trust-based approach helps ensure that its sustainability objectives are shared by suppliers, distributors, and communities alike.

In practice

Map your Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers for emissions, human rights, and biodiversity risks. Build engagement tiers (beginner, developing, advanced) to match supplier maturity. Share tools, guidance, and training to help suppliers collect and report consistent data.

How Sweep supports this step

Sweep’s Supply Chain Module helps you manage value-chain engagement from a single platform.

• Send tailored surveys and data-collection requests to suppliers.
• Benchmark suppliers against industry peers and track their emission trends over time.
• Monitor emissions and social indicators across suppliers and regions.
Identify dependencies and model systemic risks across your ecosystem.
By combining automation with collaboration tools, Sweep turns supplier engagement into a continuous, data-driven partnership that builds resilience across the value chain.

5. Secure leadership buy-in and build assurance early

CSRD success depends on top-down buy-in. Reporting on sustainability touches financial statements, investor relations, business resilience and strategic planning: domains owned by leadership.

Strong executive backing ensures credibility and resource allocation. Equally, assurance readiness – testing systems and verifying data early – saves enormous effort later.

Voltalia (energy, France):
“We conducted our first internal ESG audit in 2024, will pursue limited external assurance in 2025, and target reasonable assurance by 2028.”

This phased approach allows the company to identify process gaps before formal external audits begin.

In practice

Get your CEO, CFO, and board involved from day one. Run internal “dry audits” of ESG data ahead of reporting deadlines. Assign assurance responsibility to the same team managing financial audits for integration.

How Sweep supports this step

Sweep simplifies assurance readiness with built-in control and validation features.

• Track every data change and approval automatically.
• Run internal control checks to detect errors or missing information.
• Provide auditors with transparent data tracing and supporting documents.
• Create tailored dashboards to communicate progress internally with management
Generate complete audit-ready reports aligned with CSRD assurance standards.

By embedding assurance into everyday workflows, Sweep helps leadership build confidence in sustainability data long before external verification begins.

Turning reporting into strategy

Companies that have already reported via the CSRD stress that it is not just a regulatory exercise – it’s an opportunity to rethink how sustainability is embedded in business operations.

The best reports are not the longest or most detailed, but the most strategic. They focus on what truly matters, align ESG with governance and finance, and use technology to ensure rigour and traceability.

For the next wave of reporting companies, this is the time to act:

Start materiality mapping now. Build governance structures early. Define KPIs and ensure data ownership. Engage suppliers proactively. Secure C-suite commitment.

Above all, view CSRD as a catalyst for transformation. With the right systems – like Sweep’s integrated data platform – compliance can become a competitive advantage: turning sustainability data into insight, insight into action, and action into measurable impact.