Getting Started With VSME:
Four Practical Tips For SMEs
By UN Global Compact NL
24.10.2025, 08:30
Turn your SME's sustainability reporting into a strategic asset
For many small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), sustainability reporting is often the root of headaches and frustrations. There’s pressure from all sides: customers, investors, large companies, and banks are all pursuing your information to fulfill their own reporting compliance. How your business is run is now suddenly also their business. Despite trends in reporting regulations being relaxed, these partners’ questions won’t stop flowing in.
The new Voluntary SME Standard (VSME), developed by EFRAG, offers a clear and consistent framework to help SMEs respond to all the sustainability questions coming from their different stakeholders.
VSME standard: basic vs. comprehensive module
The VSME standard is divided into a basic and a comprehensive module. The basic module provides an entry point into sustainability reporting with 11 disclosures on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information that any company can disclose without investing too many resources. The comprehensive module allows you to add depth to your reporting with 9 (optional) additional data points.
Below, we have gathered four practical tips to help your SME take the first confident step toward relevant and manageable sustainability reporting.
Four practical tips to get started with VSME
(1) Use your CoP report as a starting point
To begin VSME reporting, you can strategically utilize your company’s UN Global Compact Communication on Progress (CoP) Questionnaire. Designed for compatibility with other reporting frameworks, the CoP contains valuable data that can be seamlessly integrated into your VSME report, saving time and effort. If your company is already a UN Global Compact participant, check your company’s latest CoP submission through our online database.
(2) Check out practical tools & platforms
EFRAG has identified 100 digital tools (e.g. GHG calculators and geolocation tools) that support reporting on greenhouse gas emissions in line with the VSME framework. It has also compiled an overview of 223 platforms and initiatives that assist SMEs with sustainability reporting. Explore them here.
(3) Explore the VSME modules through in-depth video guides
EFRAG provides a series of in-depth videos that guide you through both the basic and comprehensive VSME modules. A follow-up series dives deeper into the environmental, social, and governance disclosures making it easier for SMEs to understand each requirement and apply the framework step by step.
Access the introductory video series here and the follow-up video series here.
(4) VSME Digital Tools: Excel Template and XBRL Format
EFRAG has developed templates and a digital (XBRL) format so your VSME reporting can be machine‑readable and scalable.
By using the VSME, SMEs can take control of their sustainability journey instead of being dragged along by external demands. The best time to start is now: whether you build from existing CoP responses or begin fresh, VSME helps turn reporting into a strategic asset rather than a compliance burden.