Structure of the ESRS or VSME Questionnaire

Last updated on 2025-08-01

Overview

The ESRS or VSME questionnaire consists of several elements that are displayed in a tree structure and offers you various functionalities. Before starting to configure your questionnaire, familiarize yourself with the setup and general functions and, in case of working with an ESRS questionnaire, with the possible impact of mapping the results of a double materiality assessment (DMA) on the ESRS questionnaire structure.

General Structure

The ESRS or VSME questionnaire is displayed in a tree structure to make it easier to recognize which elements belong to which superordinate element and the current position of the user in the hierarchy. The questionnaire consists of the following hierarchy elements: categories, standards, sections, disclosure requirements, and questions:

Shows the hierarchy of the ESRS questionnaire. Marked in red are in descending order the levels Category, Guideline, Topic, Sub-Topic, Question.
Hierarchy of the ESRS questionnaire

The questionnaires include the following:

  • The ESRS questionnaire includes the categories General Disclosures, Environmental, Social, and Governance. 
  • The VSME questionnaire includes the categories General Information, Environmental Metrics, Social Metrics, and Governance Metrics.


Each category provides access to the corresponding ESRS or VSME standards and the sections, disclosure requirements, and questions the standard contains.

 

General Functions

Using the context menu or information icons on the right-hand side, you can do the following:

  • For categories: Click the three-dot icon to show or hide all subordinate elements.
  • For disclosure requirements: Click the information icon to view the original text of the guideline the disclosure requirement is based on.
  • For questions: Click the three-dot icon to display a preview of how the question will be displayed to the ESG Data Collector(s) or to view the original text of the guideline the question is based on.
The guideline text for a question from the ESRS questionnaire is displayed.
Guideline text for a question from the ESRS questionnaire
Impact of Mapping DMA Results on Structure

If you, as an ESG Administrator, have chosen ESRS as report guideline and activated the option Double materiality assessment when creating the ESG report, you will automatically have access to a pre-configured ESRS questionnaire, i.e. as soon as all reporting entities assigned to the ESG report have submitted their DMA reports, the ESG solution will automatically apply this information to the relevant parts of the ESRS questionnaire. The following applies:

  • If a reporting entity marked a topic, sub-topic, or sub-sub-topic as having either financial or impact materiality, this reporting entity is assigned to the respective element in the ESRS questionnaire.
  • If a reporting entity did not mark a topic, sub-topic, or sub-sub-topic as having either financial or impact materiality, this reporting entity is not assigned to the respective element in the ESRS questionnaire.
  • If none of the reporting entities marked a topic, sub-topic, or sub-sub-topic as having either financial or impact materiality, then the respective element is automatically excluded from the ESRS questionnaire.
  • All other parts of the ESRS questionnaire that are not mapped in the DMA report are included in the ESRS questionnaire and assigned to all reporting entities.

 

Keep in mind: You can change this presetting by configuring the ESRS questionnaire according to your needs (see Configuring the ESRS or VSME Questionnaire).