Europe Is Building a Window Into Corporate Climate Data

Europe is building a single window into corporate climate data. The view is only as good as the glass.

From July 2027, anyone will be able to look up the sustainability report of any EU company in one place, for free. The European Single Access Point, or ESAP, is being built by the European Securities and Markets Authority under a 2023 regulation. The first phase of data collection began in July 2026, and the platform opens to the public by July 2027. Sustainability disclosures follow from January 2028, with full coverage by 2030. European Securities and Markets Authority

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This is genuinely good news. Today a fund manager comparing two Swedish suppliers has to hunt through two national registers, two PDF reports and two different chart formats. ESAP replaces that with one searchable, machine readable database in every EU language. It adds no new reporting obligations, since everything on it is already public. Investors get comparability. Procurement teams get a way to screen suppliers. Journalists and NGOs get a starting point instead of a research project. europa

But a database is a distribution system, not a quality control system. It will publish whatever companies put into it, and what most companies put in is an estimate.

The problem

When a majority of the calculations are weak estimates, distribution is secondary

The problem sits in scope 3, the indirect emissions in a company's value chain. CDP found that supply chain emissions are on average 11.4 times higher than a company's own operational emissions, and in retail the ratio reaches 28 to 1. In its 2023 disclosure data, CDP and BCG put the figure at 26.

Whichever number you take, the conclusion is the same. For most companies, the emissions that matter are the ones outside the factory gate. CDP CDP

Most of those emissions are calculated using the spend-based method: take how much money was spent with a supplier, multiply by an industry average emission factor. It is fast and it requires nothing from the supplier. It is also close to blind. Two companies buying identical steel at different prices report different footprints. A company that negotiates a discount appears to cut emissions. A supplier that switches to green electricity shows up nowhere at all.

The gap is measurable. A UK review by certification body NQA compared more than 50 verified clients across 28 industry codes against national spend-based factors, and found that 77 percent had actual emissions lower than the factor suggested, by an average of 79 percent. NQA

The alternative is activity-based data: physical quantities from ERP and procurement systems, and emission factors tied to what was actually bought rather than what it cost. It is harder. It is also the only version of the number an investor can act on.

ESAP will make corporate climate data visible in a way it has never been in Europe. The next question is whether it is worth looking at. There is about a year and a half to fix that.

FAQ

 

1. What is the European Single Access Point (ESAP)?

ESAP is a free, public EU database that collects financial and sustainability information from companies across the European Union in one searchable place. It is operated by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) under a 2023 regulation, and provides the data in machine readable format in all EU languages.

2. When does ESAP go live, and when will sustainability data be available?

Data collection began in July 2026, and the platform opens to the public by July 2027. Sustainability disclosures start appearing from January 2028, with full coverage phased in by 2030. Companies that want defensible emissions data on the platform from day one have roughly a year and a half to change how they calculate it.

3. Does ESAP create new reporting requirements for companies?

No. ESAP adds no new disclosure obligations. It centralises information companies already publish under existing EU rules. The change is in accessibility and comparability, not in what has to be reported. What does change is exposure: numbers that were previously buried in a PDF become directly comparable against competitors.

4. Why is scope 3 data quality a problem for ESAP?

Because scope 3 emissions dominate most corporate footprints, and most companies estimate rather than measure them. CDP found supply chain emissions average 11.4 times a company's own operational emissions. If those numbers rest on industry averages, centralising them makes weak data easier to find, not more reliable. This is the gap Bardo was built to close, by producing activity-based inventories instead of estimates.

5. What is the difference between spend-based and activity-based scope 3 calculation?

The spend-based method multiplies money spent by an industry average emission factor, so a price change alters the reported footprint even when nothing physical changes. The activity-based method uses actual quantities purchased, such as tonnes of steel or kilowatt hours, combined with supplier or product specific factors. Only the activity-based number reflects real decarbonisation. Bardo builds these inventories directly from a company's ERP and financial systems, so the calculation runs on transaction data the business already has.