German machinery manufacturers warn of wave of EU bureaucracy

German machinery manufacturers have criticized the planned EU reporting obligations for companies on sustainability as unrealistic, reported dpa.

The so-called Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will overburden many medium-sized companies that are subject to the reporting obligation for the first time, and in the end will lead at best to a bonanza for consultants, the industry association VDMA warned on Sunday.

"The mechanical and plant engineering sector has a great interest in sustainability reporting that is relevant for the international capital market," said Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann.

However, there is a threat of "a huge, inefficient and unnecessary wave of bureaucracy rolling towards SMEs."

According to the European Commission, the aim of the directive is to make information from companies on the sustainability of their activities more comparable. Companies covered by the directive are to report on their impact on the environment, human rights and social standards on the basis of common standards.

The VDMA criticizes the fact that, among other things, that the reporting obligations are to cover the entire value chain of companies. In the case of many machines and plants, this can include thousands of parts.

"This leads to a high level of effort in the companies, which is not affordable for medium-sized companies and does not justify the advantages of such an all-encompassing approach," said Brodtmann.

Especially in the current challenging times, politics should reduce additional burdens for companies to a minimum, demanded the VDMA chief: "It would be even better to reduce the bureaucratic burdens. We have more important problems to solve than writing more reports."