The Voluntary Standard ("VS", previously called VSME) is the EU's simplified sustainability-reporting standard for companies that are not required to report under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). It was adopted as Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560, published in the Official Journal on 21 September 2026.
Why a small company should care
Nobody forces a small company to publish a VS report. In practice, though, sustainability questions reach small firms through three channels:
- Large customers need data from their suppliers for their own CSRD reports.
- Banks and leasing companies ask for ESG information when they price loans.
- Tenders and procurement questionnaires increasingly include sustainability questions.
The VS gives you one standard answer you can reuse for all of them, instead of filling in a different questionnaire for every customer.
The "value chain cap"
The Omnibus I simplification package changed the CSRD so that large reporting companies may not require suppliers with up to 1,000 employees to provide more sustainability information than the Voluntary Standard specifies. This applies to reports for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027. See our guide to the value chain cap.
What is in the standard
| Module | Content | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Module (B1–B11) | Company basics, policies, energy and greenhouse gases, pollution, biodiversity, water, waste, workforce, health and safety, pay and training, corruption convictions | Every user; the target level for micro-undertakings |
| Comprehensive Module (C1–C9) | Strategy, targets, climate risks, human rights and more detail on workforce | Companies whose customers or banks ask for more |
Companies with 10 or fewer employees may treat several Basic Module datapoints as voluntary, including energy and greenhouse gases (B3), water (B6) and waste (B7). See VS for micro-undertakings.
What to do first
- Collect last year's energy and fuel invoices, your payroll summary and your waste collector's statements.
- Prepare the Basic Module with our free VS Report Builder, which runs in your browser and stores nothing on a server.
- Keep the source documents together: customers and banks may ask how a number was obtained.
Sources: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560 (EUR-Lex); EFRAG news, 22 September 2026. This guide is general information, not legal advice.