Voluntary Standard for SMEs (VSME/VS)

VSME/VS enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and other protected undertakings (up to 1,000 employees) to disclose sustainability-related information in a comprehensive and standardized format. Adoption of the standard further aims to reduce the burden associated with sustainability data requests from financial institutions and value-chain partners. Additionally, under the Omnibus I framework, the standard serves as a statutory "value chain cap" to limit the trickle-down effect of reporting. Nevertheless, application of the standard remains entirely voluntary.

Institutional Arrangement

Structure

The VSME/VS framework consists of two modules that organizations with up to 1000 employees can employ to prepare their sustainabilty report:

• Basic Module: This module captures essential and general information, as well as foundational sustainability metrics. The datapoints included represent the minimum reporting requirement for undertakings.

• Comprehensive Module: This module expands upon the Basic Module by incorporating additional, more detailed datapoints. These enhanced disclosures are designed to meet the information needs of external stakeholders such as banks, investors and other capital providers.

Supporting documents

In order to ease report preparation, EFRAG provides a digital template in an Excel format. Additionally, the XBRL Taxonomy enables the digitalisation of reported data, designed to harmonize data requests and further processing of the data by stakeholders. Finally, EFRAG developed additional implementation guidance to further explain reporting requirements. To ensure legal certainty regarding information limits, Annex II to Delegated Regulation C(2026) 5011 final contains the dedicated list of disclosures covered by the statutory value chain cap. 

Links and sources

EFRAG Knowledge Hub

EFRAG VSME ecosystem