Use case 01
Which version of the sustainability reporting standards applies to my financial year?
Last reviewed: 1 September 2026
It sounds like a formality and it is the practical core of reporting year 2026. Apply the wrong version and you collect data points that are no longer required — or omit ones that still are.
For financial years beginning before 1 January 2027 there is a choice. Applicable are the European Sustainability Reporting Standards as set out in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772, the revised version under delegated act C(2026) 5010 final of 3 July 2026, or the 2023 version making use of the reliefs provided there. The revised version is mandatory for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.
What changed
The revised standards at a glance.
Substantive changes
- Quantitative disclosures take precedence over narrative descriptions
- Express prohibition on reporting information that is not material
- New transitional provisions, including one year for substances of very high concern
- Clarifications on microplastics, greenhouse gas boundaries and asset management carve-outs
Renamings that cause errors in practice
- ESRS E3 is now titled simply “Water”; the earlier “Water and Marine Resources” no longer appears in the new text
- A model that completes standard titles from memory still returns the old one
- Such errors go unnoticed because the answer looks correct and carries a reference
The test question
How to tell whether a system keeps the versions apart.
Ask this once in CSRD-GPT and once in whatever you use otherwise. The difference is not in the length of the answer.
“What changes for ESRS E1-1 between ESRS 2023 and ESRS 2026, and which version applies to a financial year 2026?”Test question for version separation
A sound answer names three things: which version each statement comes from, what specifically changed, and which version applies to the financial year given — including the option to choose. An answer that treats “the standards” as a single body of text has not understood the question, only steered around it.
Frequently asked
Which version applies to financial year 2026?
For financial years beginning before 1 January 2027 there is a choice: companies may apply the standards as set out in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772, the revised version under C(2026) 5010 final, or the 2023 version making use of the reliefs provided there. The revised version is mandatory only for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.
What changed in the revised standards?
The number of mandatory data points falls by about 61 per cent and the number of disclosure requirements from roughly 91 to roughly 75. Quantitative disclosures take precedence over narrative ones. Reporting on information that is not material is expressly prohibited. Individual standards are renamed, among them ESRS E3, now titled simply “Water”.
Why can’t ChatGPT answer this reliably?
Because both versions sit in the training of the same model and are not separated there. The model knows the bodies of text but holds no dividing line between them. It therefore mixes them and cannot say which version a statement came from.