Recital (22)

The Commission should be empowered to adopt a delegated act to provide for sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use by protected undertakings. Those standards should be proportionate to, and relevant for, the capacities and the characteristics of those undertakings and proportionate to the scale and complexity of their activities. Other undertakings not required to report sustainability information should also be able to choose to make use of those standards. The sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use should use simplified language and take into account the think small first principle, using modularity allowing for flexibility and progression in the disclosures. To the greatest extent possible, sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use should take account of Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council. Those standards should also specify, where possible, the structure to be used to present that information. Until the Commission adopts sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use, undertakings that report sustainability information voluntarily are free to do so in accordance with Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710 which is based on the voluntary standard for SMEs (VSME) developed by EFRAG. To ensure continuity and proportionality, the sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use adopted by the Commission by means of a delegated act should be based on that Recommendation.