The EU’s voluntary sustainability reporting standard VSME (Voluntary Standard for non-listed Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) has been developed for SMEs that are not within the scope of the CSRD Directive but increasingly face sustainability information requests from customers, financiers and partners. Also read about the European Commission’s position on the use of the VSME standard.
On paper, the objective is sensible:
– to harmonize sustainability information
– to facilitate responses to ESG information requests
– to improve SMEs’ access to financing
In practice, however, VSME is a reporting framework, not a model for sustainability work. In drafting the standard, the primary points of departure have been the needs of financiers and other stakeholders, rather than those of SMEs. It does not tell companies what they should do, but rather what they should, in the view of the standard’s authors, be able to report.
This distinction is essential for SMEs.
Sustainability work in SMEs is built in everyday operations: energy use, procurement, personnel matters, customer work, and management. VSME provides little guidance for these choices; instead, it compiles them retrospectively into reportable data points.
Also read: Why does sustainability reporting alone not change anything in SMEs?
For this reason, VSME works best as a supporting tool, not as a starting point for sustainability work. This is why VSME alone does not yet create value; what is decisive is how it is used.
Compile your company’s sustainability information in one place and learn how to prepare your own VSME sustainability report..
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