On April 18, 2024, the Schmalenbach Conference 2024 took place in Cologne under the title “New Sustainability Reporting: Initial Experiences with the ESRS.” After the conference was opened by the President of the Schmalenbach Society for Business Administration e.V., the topic “New Era of Sustainability Reporting: Current Developments and Trends from the Perspective of Politics, Regulation, and Capital Markets” was discussed. Impulse statements and a panel discussion with Sven Gentner, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Lopatta, Dr. Christoph Jurecka, and Jenny Bofinger-Schuster followed. The discussion focused on the importance of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards in both the European and global contexts. The current state of implementation was also discussed, and next steps were addressed. The moderation was led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Asenkerschbaumer and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Alfred Wagenhofer.
In the breakout session “Implementation Level of ESG Regulation: Disclosure Requirements, Reporting Strategies, and Processes in the ESG Fields,” Prof. Dr. Alexander Bassen moderated the discussion with Catrin Coners, Head of Sustainability/Strategy at Vonovia SE, and Jonathan Loewens, Group Accounting at Allianz, on the “Social” area. They discussed, among other things, the integration of social topics into materiality analysis, the determination of auditable data points, and the necessary sector-specific perspective.
For more detailed information about the event, you can find it here.