Com­pa­nies that act sus­tai­nably have a clear ad­van­tage, be­cause the to­pic is boo­ming like ne­ver be­fore and the de­mands are in­cre­asing. Nu­me­rous in­itia­ti­ves more and more are brin­ging the is­sue of ESG into the pu­blic con­scious­ness and ma­king it a hot to­pic in po­li­tics and busi­ness. Ever more le­gal re­qui­re­ments to act sus­tai­nably are joi­ning volun­tary com­mit­ments, even for SMEs.

In the past ten years, nu­me­rous le­gis­la­tive in­itia­ti­ves have been laun­ched that make ESG more than just a fu­ture trend in the le­gal sphere. De­ta­ched from the re­spon­si­bi­lity of large ca­pi­tal-mar­ket-ori­en­ted en­ter­pri­ses, these in­itia­ti­ves also ra­diate onto me­dium-si­zed com­pa­nies, which feel at least in­di­rect pres­sure to im­ple­ment them.

Thus, the Cor­po­rate Sus­tai­na­bi­lity Re­por­ting Di­rec­tive (CSRD) must also be ob­ser­ved by smal­ler and me­dium-si­zed ca­pi­tal mar­ket-ori­en­ted com­pa­nies from 2026. Com­pa­nies with more than 50 em­ployees will have to com­ply with the re­gu­la­ti­ons on whist­leb­lo­wer pro­tec­tion by 17 De­cem­ber 2023, and com­pa­nies with at least 3,000 em­ployees will have to ful­fil ex­ten­sive re­por­ting and due di­li­gence ob­li­ga­ti­ons un­der the new Supply Chain Due Di­li­gence Act by 1 Ja­nu­ary 2023. ESG-re­le­vant re­qui­re­ments exist in al­most in­nu­mera­ble areas.

With the fast de­ve­lop­ment and mul­ti­tude of dif­fe­rent laws, gui­de­lines and other partly al­re­ady bin­ding or (still) volun­tary re­qui­re­ments for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of ESG-re­le­vant as­pects, it is easy to lose the over­view. Against this back­drop, SMEs in par­ti­cu­lar should not sit back and re­lax. The early in­tro­duc­tion of sus­tai­nable struc­tures, the le­gally com­pli­ant im­ple­men­ta­tion of le­gal re­qui­re­ments and the pre­pa­ra­tion for laws and re­gu­la­ti­ons that will come into force in the near fu­ture lead to an ad­van­tage in in­dus­try-spe­ci­fic com­pe­ti­tion, an in­crease in the chan­ces of suc­cess and si­gni­fi­cantly drive in­no­va­tion in the com­pany. At the same time, risks are avo­ided for all par­ties in­vol­ved and re­pre­sent an in­vest­ment in the fu­ture to­day.

The to­pic of ESG plays into the re­le­vant areas of com­mer­cial law - from la­bor law to com­pli­ance to com­mer­cial cri­mi­nal law. They have to be ta­ken into ac­count in the re­spec­tive di­sci­pline. Across all areas of law, the fol­lo­wing range of ser­vices is re­le­vant.