Government proposes increased transparency on sustainability impacts of large and listed companies

On 28 September 2023, the Government submitted to Parliament its proposal for amending the Accounting Act, the Auditing Act and certain related acts. The proposed acts would implement the EU-Directive on corporate sustainability reporting.

Information on the impacts related to the environment, human rights and other social matters would be published annually in a sustainability report that would be included in the company’s annual report. The Commission will define harmonised requirements concerning data content for all EU Member States in its Regulation.

“Sustainability indicators and methods support companies in ensuring that their business models are sustainable. We expect the new rules to also increase citizens’ trust in companies and in activities that generate wellbeing in the market economy sustainably,” says Minister of Employment Arto Satonen.

Although the new Directive applies to listed companies and large limited liability companies, it is proposed that its obligations be extended to cover comparable cooperative societies in Finland. This would make the published information consistent regardless of the legal form of business activities.

The new Directive also requires that the sustainability report included in the annual report be submitted digitally. The Government proposes that the requirement to supply the report digitally also apply to financial statements in Finland. This would enable the uniform processing and utilisation of these documents in the future.

The acts are set to enter into force on 31 December 2023. The rules on sustainability reporting would be applied as required by the Directive so that the obligations would first apply to information of large listed companies for the financial year 2024 that are published in spring 2025.

Inquiries:
Timo Kaisanlahti, Chief Specialist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 29 504 7139
Mika Björklund, Ministerial Adviser, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. + 358 29 506 3586
The Ministry’s email addresses are in the format [email protected]