Standards and reporting
ESG reporting examples
Useful ESG reporting examples reveal the reasoning, boundaries and evidence behind a disclosure, so this guide reads four dated company reports and adds an original fictional example.
What makes an ESG reporting example useful?
A useful example shows how a company connects its reporting basis, materiality decisions and evidence to published disclosures rather than only presenting sustainability ambitions.
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Basis
Identify the report year, entity boundary and standards the company says it applied.
Module 02 / 04
Decision
Find the explanation of how topics became material and who reviewed the outcome.
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Evidence
Look for definitions, methods, scope limitations and linked results.
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Use
Extract a reporting technique that suits your own task without copying another company’s conclusions.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The examples below are four FY2024 company disclosures read for their methods and presentation, not an independent ranking of reporting quality.
They use the 2023 ESRS context and should not be treated as templates for the revised 2026 standards Historical ESRS text.
Which published examples should you start with?
BASF, Ørsted, ING and Ahold Delhaize each publish a 2024 sustainability statement with a materiality explanation, giving different examples of how to communicate the assessment BASF 2024 Ørsted 2024 ING 2024 Ahold Delhaize 2024.
| Company and report | Useful reading task | Limit of the example |
|---|---|---|
| BASF Report 2024 | Follow assessment steps into results tables | Its industry and conclusions are company-specific |
| Ørsted Annual Report 2024 | Compare the topic-level matrix with underlying IRO detail | The matrix is a presentation choice |
| ING Group Annual Report 2024 | Read gross assessment and the reporting reference index | A banking method is not a universal scoring model |
| Ahold Delhaize Annual Report 2024 | Follow the method into strategy links and reporting boundaries | Its retail and value-chain context differs from other businesses |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
Open the actual company report alongside this guide so that presentation choices remain connected to their original context.
What can you learn from BASF’s materiality explanation?
BASF describes a three-step assessment, a five-point scoring approach and tables linking material impacts, risks and opportunities to sustainability topics BASF 2024: process and results.
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Starting list
The company explains how it compiled potential sustainability matters across its business and value chain.
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Inputs
It distinguishes direct and indirect stakeholder inputs rather than describing engagement only as a general principle.
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Assessment
It explains how impacts and financial risks or opportunities were assessed.
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Results
The published tables connect matters with time horizons and value-chain positions.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
BASF reported ESRS S4 Consumers and End Users as not material and explained its business-model rationale BASF 2024: materiality conclusion.
The transferable lesson is to explain the evidence and decision, not to assume another B2B company should reach the same conclusion.
Must every report use the same materiality graphic?
The published examples use different presentation choices, including BASF’s results tables and Ørsted’s topic-level matrix BASF results presentation Ørsted 2024: materiality matrix.
| Presentation | What it helps explain | What needs supporting detail |
|---|---|---|
| Results table | Matter, impact or financial risk, time horizon and value-chain position | Method, criteria and meaning of the entries |
| Topic matrix | An aggregated view of how topics compare within that company’s assessment | Underlying impacts, risks and opportunities hidden by aggregation |
| Process diagram | How evidence moves through the assessment | Actual judgements and the final decision |
| Reference index | Where required information appears | Whether the linked location answers the question |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
Choose the form that makes the underlying reasoning easier to inspect rather than reproducing the most attractive graphic.
What does Ørsted’s matrix reveal and conceal?
Ørsted reports 40 material impacts, risks and opportunities and explains that its matrix aggregates these into seven material ESRS topics Ørsted 2024: page 67.
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Aggregation
The matrix summarises topics rather than showing every underlying impact or financial exposure.
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Placement
The company says the highest-scoring IRO determines the topic’s position.
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Mixed effects
A topic can contain positive and negative impacts alongside risks and opportunities.
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Detail
Read the supporting IRO descriptions and method rather than interpreting a matrix position alone.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
Ørsted’s explanation warns that several topics within the same quadrant are listed in chronological order rather than ranked by differing materiality Ørsted 2024: matrix explanation.
That is a useful example of explaining how a visual should be read.
Does a non-material topic mean the company ignores it?
Ørsted separately publishes water and pollution data even though those topics fell below its 2024 materiality level for the annual-report sustainability statement Ørsted Water and Pollution Data 2024.
| Reader question | What to inspect | Avoid inferring |
|---|---|---|
| Why is a topic outside the main statement? | The stated materiality decision and reporting basis | That the topic has no relevance anywhere |
| Is related information published elsewhere? | Separate disclosures and their boundaries | That every separate figure belongs to the same report claim |
| What is the basis of the separate data? | Definitions, accounting policies and scope | That the method automatically matches another framework |
| What does any assurance cover? | The actual assurance statement and subject matter | That one conclusion covers every corporate webpage |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
This guide does not independently assess or extend any report’s assurance conclusion.
What can you learn from ING’s approach?
ING explains that its materiality assessment uses a gross approach that does not take its initiated mitigating actions into account ING 2024: materiality assessment.
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Meaning
The report explains what gross means in its assessment instead of leaving the label undefined.
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Criteria
It describes severity, likelihood and financial-magnitude considerations in its own methodology.
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Context
The bank’s value chain and business relationships shape the assessment.
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Navigation
A reference index helps readers locate sustainability information across the annual report.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
ING states that information is not confined to the sustainability statement and directs readers to its reference index ING 2024: reporting basis.
The lesson is to define the method and navigation clearly rather than adopting a bank’s thresholds for an unrelated business.
Which parts of a published example can you reuse?
Reuse the question or documentation technique after checking your own reporting basis, rather than copying another company’s conclusions or scoring thresholds.
| Potential technique | Useful adaptation | Do not copy as a conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| BASF’s decision explanation | Document why a topic was included or excluded | Its specific topic exclusions |
| Ørsted’s matrix note | Explain aggregation and how to read the graphic | Its topic positions and materiality threshold |
| ING’s method definition | State whether and how mitigation affects the assessment | Its banking portfolio assumptions |
| Ahold Delhaize’s strategy connection | Show how findings inform the organisation’s decisions | Its retail strategy priorities |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The double-materiality guide helps distinguish the assessment task from the design of its presentation.
What does Ahold Delhaize add to the examples?
Ahold Delhaize describes an eight-step assessment and links its material sustainability matters with strategic priorities in the resulting table Ahold Delhaize 2024: materiality process.
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Context
Its explanation starts from activities, relationships and sustainability due-diligence work.
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Assessment
The report describes a five-point scale and the use of topic experts where data was unavailable.
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Review
It explains validation and approval of the resulting material matters.
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Strategy
The table links material matters to business priorities rather than leaving the findings detached from management decisions.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
Its basis of preparation also explains consolidation, estimates and the change from prior GRI reporting to ESRS in 2024 Ahold Delhaize 2024: basis of preparation.
Those explanations make changes in reporting more intelligible without implying that every metric is directly comparable across frameworks.
What might a clearer ESG disclosure look like?
The following original fictional excerpt illustrates a narrow, checkable disclosure rather than a complete standard-compliant report.
| Fictional wording | What it adds | Evidence needed |
|---|---|---|
| The measure covers our three operated warehouses for the year ended 31 December 2025 | Entity, location and period boundary | Site register and reporting-period records |
| Recorded electricity use was 1,200 MWh, compared with 1,260 MWh on the same boundary in 2024 | Unit, result and comparative context | Meter records and reconciliation |
| Two months at one site were estimated from occupied days and the prior-year profile | Visible estimation limitation | Gap record, estimation method and review |
| The operations director reviewed the reconciliation on 12 March 2026 | Named role and review event | Approval record and unresolved issues |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The activity decline is 60 MWh, or approximately 4.8%, but this example does not attribute the change to an efficiency project or translate it into avoided emissions.
For emissions calculations, use the conversion-factors guide and check the activity period, factor version and accounting boundary.
What should sit behind the fictional disclosure?
A useful working record connects each published number and explanation with its definition, data source, method, limitations and review.
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Definition
State whether the number is measured activity, an estimated result or a target.
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Boundary
List the entities, sites or populations included and identify exclusions.
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Method
Retain unit conversion, estimation assumptions and any calculation steps.
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Review
Keep the reviewer’s questions, corrections and final approval alongside the record.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
GRI 1’s accuracy, comparability and verifiability principles provide useful reporting-quality context, while the actual reporting basis determines the applicable requirements GRI 1: reporting principles.
This evidence design is editorial guidance and does not create an assurance conclusion.
Which weak patterns should a reviewer challenge?
Ask for the missing definition, boundary or explanation before treating an attractive claim as a useful disclosure.
| Weak wording | Missing information | Better editorial question |
|---|---|---|
| Our emissions fell significantly | Measure, period, boundary and comparison | Which emissions and accounting basis changed? |
| All suppliers are sustainable | Population, criteria, evidence and limits | Which suppliers were assessed against what criteria? |
| Aligned with leading standards | The actual standards, versions and reporting claim | Which requirements were applied and where is the information? |
| Data independently verified | Subject matter, criteria, assurance level and scope | What does the actual assurance statement cover? |
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
GRI’s general disclosures include information about external assurance, but GRI itself does not certify sustainability reports GRI 2: Disclosure 2-5 GRI certification policy.
How can software or consultants help with the work?
Define a concrete reporting task and require a demonstration of traceable outputs rather than buying a promise of a finished ESG report.
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Data collection
Show the source record, missing-data flag and responsible owner.
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Drafting
Connect each disclosure to its reporting basis and publication location.
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Review
Demonstrate correction history, limitations and reviewer decisions.
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Handover
Export a readable evidence pack and index that the team can retain.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The reporting-software guide provides buying tests for those controls.
The consultancy guide helps specify responsibility for research, preparation and review without transferring the reporting organisation’s judgement to a sales claim.
How can the reporting team put this into practice?
This nine-stage editorial workflow helps organise preparation and review without creating a statutory timetable.
- 101
Choose the example
Select a dated company report that answers a specific reporting question. - 202
Record the context
Note the year, reporting entity, standards and business model. - 303
Read the basis
Check boundaries, changes, estimates and publication locations. - 404
Trace one decision
Follow a materiality conclusion back to its method and evidence. - 505
Inspect one metric
Check unit, population, method, comparative and limitations. - 606
Adapt the technique
Apply the useful documentation approach to your own reporting task. - 707
Build the evidence record
Assign data owners and retain reproducible source and review records. - 808
Review the wording
Challenge unsupported claims and check the actual reporting basis. - 909
Publish and retain
Check links and indexes, preserve approvals and plan the next review.
Frequently asked
Questions people ask
Are these the best ESG reports?
The reports are selected to illustrate different methods and presentation choices, and this guide does not rank their quality or independently assess their completeness.
Can I copy a company’s materiality matrix?
Use the presentation idea only if it explains your own evidence and decisions rather than copying the other company’s thresholds or conclusions.
Do the 2024 reports demonstrate the revised 2026 ESRS?
No, these are FY2024 examples under the 2023 ESRS context, so their paragraph references and methods should not be treated as current revised-standard templates.
Does a non-material topic have no importance?
Not necessarily, as Ørsted’s separate water and pollution publication shows that information may be reported outside the main materiality-selected statement.
Is the annotated electricity example a compliance template?
No, its values, sites and review event are fictional, and it illustrates evidence and clarity rather than a complete reporting-standard claim.
Does the guide verify the companies’ assurance conclusions?
No, readers should inspect each actual assurance report for its subject matter, criteria and scope rather than infer coverage from this guide.
Sources
Primary sources
Primary provisions and official owner guidance checked on 26 October 2026; historical and draft resources are labelled in the guide.
- BASF SEBASF Report 2024: Double Materiality Assessment
- BASF SEBASF Report 2024: materiality assessment and results PDF
- BASF SEBASF Report 2024: General Disclosures
- Ørsted A/SØrsted Annual Report 2024: pages 67–74
- Ørsted A/SØrsted Water and Pollution Data 2024
- ING Groep N.V.ING Group Annual Report 2024: Sustainability Statement
- ING Groep N.V.ING annual report 2024: official report access
- Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V.Ahold Delhaize Annual Report 2024: Sustainability Statements
- European Commission2023 ESRS adopted text: historical reporting context
- Global Reporting InitiativeGRI 1: Foundation 2021, reporting principles
- Global Reporting InitiativeGRI 2: General Disclosures 2021
- IFRS FoundationIFRS S1 supporting implementation
- Global Reporting InitiativeGRI copyright and reporting certification policy