Holtara, the ESG solutions group of financial services and solutions provider Apex Group, announced today the launch of Holtara.io, a new advisory and solutions platform aimed at helping companies comply with the EU’s new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

The new platform comes as many companies are in the process of complying with the CSRD’s new sustainability reporting requirements. The CSRD is a major update to the EU’s sustainability reporting framework, significantly expanding the number of companies required to provide sustainability disclosures to over 50,000 from around 12,000. Based on new underlying European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), the CSRD introduces more detailed reporting requirements on companies’ impacts on the environment, human rights, and social standards, and for sustainability-related risks.

The CSRD took effect from the beginning of 2024 for large public-interest companies with over 500 employees, with the first reports to be issued in 2025, followed by companies with more than 250 employees or €50 million in revenue in the following year, listed SMEs one year later, and non-EU companies with more than €150 million EU revenues reporting in 2029.

According to Holtara, the new platform is aimed at helping businesses to address the CSRD’s complex compliance process, which includes a requirement for firms to answer 2,000 questions, and introduces demands for 3rd party auditing.

Gert-Jan van de Poll, Head of CSRD at Holtara, said:

“With the introduction of CSRD, many companies are struggling to meet expanded reporting demands, and that’s where our expertise comes in. Our thorough understanding of CSRD’s complexities has enabled us to develop a platform that is tailored to the market’s needs.”

The new platform includes Holtara’s advisory capabilities, and tools enabling the solution to act as an “ESG data lake,” with the ability to record, organize and store data for CSRD reporting.

Key features of the new platform include contextual help for businesses for each CSRD question, configuration aligned with the regulation’s phased requirements, forms that adapt to previous responses, user alerts for critical tasks, workflow tools aimed at reducing back-and-forth between stakeholders, the ability to bypass irrelevant questions with mandatory justifications, and audit-ready report output, according to Holtara.

As part of the platform, Holtara also provides advisory services encompassing areas such as scoping, double materiality, data collection guidance, training and workshops, gap analysis, and implementation support.

Andy Pitts-Tucker, Managing Director at Holtara, says:

“Our aim is to simplify complex ESG reporting to the extent that businesses can channel those efforts into achieving their sustainability and decarbonisation goals.”