E5-5 – Resource outflows

🗂️ ESRS E5 Resource use and Circular Economy, page 6-8

33. The undertaking shall disclose information on its resource outflows, including waste, related to its material impacts, risks and opportunities.

34. The objective of this Disclosure Requirement is to provide an understanding of:

(a) how the undertaking contributes to the circular economy by i) designing products and materials in line with circular economy principles and ii) increasing or maximising the extent to which products, materials and waste processing are recirculated in practice after first use; and

(b) the undertaking’s waste reduction and waste management strategy, the extent to which the undertaking knows how its pre-consumer waste is managed in its own activities.

Products and materials

35. The undertaking shall provide a description of the key products and materials that come out of the undertaking’s production process and that are designed along circular principles, including durability, reusability, repairability, disassembly, remanufacturing, refurbishment, recycling, recirculation by the biological cycle, or optimisation of the use of the product or material through other circular business models.

36. Undertakings for which outflows are material shall disclose:

(a) The expected durability of the products placed on the market by the undertaking, in relation to the industry average for each product group;

(b) The reparability products, using an established rating system, where possible; (c) The rates of recyclable content in products and their packaging.

Waste

37. The undertaking shall disclose the following information on its total amount of waste from its own operations, in tonnes or kilogrammes:

(a) the total amount of waste generated ;

(b) the total amount by weight diverted from disposal, with a breakdown between hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste and a breakdown by the following recovery operation types:

i. preparation for reuse;

ii. recycling; and

iii. other recovery operations.

(c) the amount by weight directed to disposal by waste treatment type and the total amount summing all three types, with a breakdown between hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste. The waste treatment types to be disclosed are:

i. incineration;

ii. landfill; and

iii. other disposal operations;

(d) the total amount and percentage of non-recycled waste.

38. When disclosing the composition of the waste, the undertaking shall specify:

(a) the waste streams relevant to its sector or activities (e.g. tailings for the undertaking in the mining sector, electronic waste for the undertaking in the consumer electronics sector, or food waste for the undertaking in the agriculture or in the hospitality sector); and;

(b) the materials that are present in the waste (e.g. biomass, metals, non-metallic minerals, plastics, textiles, critical raw materials and rare earths).

The undertaking shall also disclose the total amount of hazardous waste and radioactive waste generated by the undertaking, where radioactive waste is defined in Article 3(7) of Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom.
The undertaking shall provide contextual information on the methodologies used to calculate the data and in particular the criteria and assumptions used to determine and classify products designed along circular principles under paragraph 35. It shall specify whether the data is sourced from direct measurement or estimations; and disclose the key assumptions used.

Application Requirements

AR 26. Products and materials information to be provided under paragraph 35 refers to all materials and products that come out of the undertaking’s production process and that a company puts on the market (including packaging).

AR 27. When compiling the rate, the undertaking shall use as denominator the overall total weight of materials used during the reporting period.

AR 28. The undertaking may disclose its engagement in product end-of-life waste management, for example through extended producer responsibility schemes or take-back schemes.

AR 29. Type of waste is to be understood as hazardous waste or non-hazardous waste. Some specific waste, such as radioactive waste, may also be presented as a separate type.

AR 30. When considering the waste streams relevant to its sectors or activities, the undertaking may consider the list of waste descriptions from the European Waste Catalogue.

AR 31. Examples of other types of recovery operations under paragraph 37(b)iii may be found in Annex II of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive).

AR 32. Examples of other types of disposal operations under paragraph 37(c)iii may be found in Annex I of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive).

AR 33. When providing contextual information under paragraph 40 the undertaking may:

(a) explain the reasons for high weights of waste directed to disposal (e.g., local regulations that prohibit landfill of specific types of waste);

(b) describe sector practices, sector standards, or external regulations that mandate a specific disposal operation; and

(c) specify whether the data has been modelled or sourced from direct measurements, such as waste transfer notes from contracted waste collectors.