![\"EU](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2162222363-716x477.jpg\" "\\"EU")
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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) started receiving corporate sustainability data in July, launching the first phase of the long-awaited European Single Access Point (ESAP).<\/p>\n
Announced back in 2020, ESAP is the EU\u2019s attempt to collect all the data generated by its disclosure requirements \u2013 across 16 different directives and 19 regulations \u2013 into a single online library for financial institutions and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n
It will \u201cprovide free, easy and centralised access to financial and sustainability information about entities and their products\u201d, according to a recent statement from ESMA.<\/p>\n
The first batch of data fed into the platform will come from disclosures made under the EU Short Selling Regulation, Prospectus Regulation and Transparency Directive.<\/p>\n
For sustainability-focused investors, the Transparency Directive is key as it covers annual financial reports and, therefore, sustainability statements issued in accordance with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Donato Calace, head of partnerships and innovation at software analytics firm Datamaran, says the creation of sustainability \u201cdata lakes\u201d is not a new trend.<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been many initiatives to publicly collect information on a voluntary basis,\u201d he says. \u201cBut ESAP \u2013 where there\u2019s a requirement for disclosures to be undertaken in a certain way by a lot of companies and housed in one place \u2013 will be very important.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem, Calace continues, is that ESAP is a piece of EU legislation, which slows the process down. \u201cIt\u2019s taking a lot of time, so we can\u2019t really make plans right now based on ESAP.\u201d<\/p>\n However, despite the sweeping changes to CSRD\u2019s scope and timing over the past two years, phase one \u201cis going ahead as planned\u201d, confirms Anna Sciortino, a senior policy officer at ESMA.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the data collection started the day we made the announcement<\/a> [on 10 July], so we\u2019ve started receiving the new ESAP data for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n The information is provided to ESMA by official nationally designated \u201ccollection bodies\u201d \u2013 supervisors and private entities that already receive data directly from reporting entities as part of their existing duties under the respective laws.<\/p>\n Those collection bodies must now perform some brief, automated quality checks before sending that data to the ESAP within an hour of receiving it.<\/p>\n Once ESMA has collected \u201ca meaningful set of EU-wide information\u201d \u2013 which it must do by July 2027 \u2013 it will launch the official public website.<\/p>\n Tagging and filtering data<\/p>\n Phillip Blumenthal, head of sustainability at data specialist Code Gaia, says having access to lots of information in one place will enable stakeholders and peers to compare disclosures more easily.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also helpful if you\u2019re building automated systems to capture this information,\u201d he adds, especially when it comes to training large language models. \u201cBut this usually requires that you can access and export everything really cleanly, so if the tagging and filtering of the data isn\u2019t good, its helpfulness is compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n ESAP does not introduce any additional obligations around tagging \u2013 the practice of making reports easily machine-readable by wrapping key bits of data in standardised digital code. It relies instead on what is already required under each reporting regime.<\/p>\n That means sustainability submissions do not have to be tagged, because it is not yet mandated under CSRD.<\/p>\n However, a requirement for companies to tag their CSRD reports in accordance with XBRL \u2013 a global standard to apply computer-readable tags to data called eXtensible Business Reporting Language \u2013 is expected to be introduced imminently, now that the updated European Sustainability Reporting Standards have been approved.<\/p>\n From the start, ESAP will have an application programming interface, or API, which will enable external software to connect to the platform and perform automated data collection.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will also be a search mechanism that allows you to select the company, legislative framework or type of information you\u2019re looking for,\u201d says Sciortino. \u201cAnd you\u2019ll be able to see all the relevant information.\u201d<\/p>\n Users will be able to download everything for free.<\/p>\n \u201cThere may be some limitations on certain users, if we see that usage patterns are consuming all of our processing power, for example, but we cannot anticipate that,\u201d adds Sciortino.<\/p>\n Phase two<\/p>\n Sustainability reports for non-listed companies will be added to ESAP when the Accounting Directive is onboarded in phase two, starting in January 2028. So too will data from the EU Taxonomy, Paris-Aligned Benchmark and the ESG Ratings Regulation.<\/p>\n Provided the current legislative review is completed in time, the same deadline will apply for information from the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)<\/a>.<\/p>\n