The EU has recently adopted a coherent framework of policies and actions, the Green Deal, with the aim of Europe being, as a continent, environmentally sustainable and "neutral", in terms of emissions, by 2050.

To achieve this goal, it undertook a series of legislative initiatives, which introduce obligations and responsibilities for companies, regarding sustainability, comprising their operation, including subsidiaries as well as their value chain i.e. suppliers and subcontractors.

It is obvious that a completely new operating environment for businesses, especially for SMEs, is being created, requiring their compliance with specific sustainability requirements and the consequent proof of their compliance. And this will no longer be sufficient to be done simply by their declaration, in most cases, but their evaluation by an independent body will be required.

It is obvious that the disclosure of non-financial data by SMEs, i.e. ESG data, requires the definition of specific procedures and measurable indicators, which will be disclosed to clients and financial institutions. And this should be done based on of a single Requirements Specification, which include all the ESG issues, introduced by the legislation, taking into account at the same time the sectoral dimension of SME activities.

EUROCERT pioneered, defining this unified framework of requirements based on widely accepted Standards, theETHOS Standard and the draft EFRAG Standard.

The ETHOS Standard, has been prepared by EUROCERT and the Hellenic Network for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR HELLAS)

The main pillars for evaluation according to the ETHOS Standard are the following:

• Respect for human rights
• Employee rights
• Health & Safety and working conditions
• Quality customer service
• Environment
• Fight against corruption and bribery
• Local community

The draft EU Standard” Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non - listed SMEs that are outside the scope of CSRD ” of European Financial Reporting Advisory Group ( EFRAG ), has been prepared at the behest of the EU and includes sustainability requirements, as part of their publication process.