ESRS E3 Water and Marine Resources

ESRS E3 “Water and Marine Resources” is one of the topical environmental standards within the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), adopted under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) as Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772. The standard addresses the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources and requires reporting companies to transparently disclose their material impacts, risks and opportunities relating to water consumption, water withdrawal, water discharge and the protection of oceans and seas.

Whether a company must report under ESRS E3 follows from the double materiality assessment. Only once water or marine resources have been identified as a material topic do the specific disclosure requirements apply. These cover in particular the description of policies, actions and resources, as well as measurable targets. At the metrics level, the focus is on total water withdrawal, water consumption and water discharge, each with particular attention to sites located in areas of high water stress (water-stress areas). A planned or existing water intensity ratio relative to net revenue may also need to be disclosed.

ESRS E3 is closely interlinked with the other environmental standards: impacts on water and marine resources are often connected to pollution (ESRS E2) and to the degradation of biodiversity and ecosystems (ESRS E4). Methodologically, the standard ties in with the EU Taxonomy, whose environmental objective “sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources” corresponds in substance. For many companies the central challenge is to collect robust data across their own sites and the value chain, to assess water-stress risks on a georeferenced basis, and to prepare the disclosures in an audit-proof manner in line with the ESRS data points.