Adapting to ESRS 2 sustainability standard : a case study on Freska Group

Abstract

This thesis studies the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and how they can be integrated to into Freska Group’s operations. Freska Group as a Nordic cleaning company needs to report under Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive staring from year 2026, that will include the data from year 2025. Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive sets requirements for large and listed companies how they need to prepare their sustainability reports. The aim of the directive is to improve the transparency and accountability of companies. This research uses a case study to identify the gaps between European Sustainability Reporting Standard 2 that sets the mandatory general disclosures to report and current practices of Freska Group. The information of current practices was collected from an interview with Freska Group’s sustainability champion and used a gap analysis to identify the needed actions for gaps to be able to meet the set requirements. Main findings of the thesis were gaps in governance, data collection, stakeholder engagement and setting formalized sustainability policies and metric. The action plan in gap analysis shows a detailed instructions to comply under the European Sustainability Reporting Standard 2 by considering every datapoint and offering practical solutions, if applicable.

The study showed that Freska Group as a company starting their sustainability reporting can meet the requirements of European Sustainability Reporting Standard 2. Reporting with the European Sustainability Reporting Standard will enable Freska Group to better position in financing as they will be able to show accurate and transparent reports on their sustainability practices. Suggestions and implementations presented in this study are applicable to various industries and companies outside of cleaning industry, since the focus has been on the mandatory disclosure that is not dependent on the material assessment. Therefore, this study can be used by any company required to report under Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.