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La Lorraine Bakery Group

La Lorraine Bakery Group (LLBG), a Belgian family-owned company with over 85 years of expertise in the milling and bakery sector, partnered with Karomia to complete their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) and begin their CSRD gap analysis. With Karomia’s AI-powered platform, LLBG rapidly identified key Impacts, Risks, and Opportunities (IROs), reduced ESG team workload, and laid a solid foundation for their future CSRD compliance.

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Van Moer Logistics

Van Moer Logistics, a leading integrated logistics service provider, faced the complex task of completing their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) to meet CSRD reporting requirements. By leveraging Karomia’s AI-driven platform, they transformed a manual, time-consuming process into an efficient, streamlined workflow, saving time, reducing workload, and ensuring audit-ready compliance.

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Beyond Compliance : The Future of ESG
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Heat is Burning Profits - Let's Keep Yours Cool

Heat waves are hurting small business. What can you do about it?

As I write this, Belgium and France are once again under a heat-wave alert. While the public-health implications are known, what’s less discussed is how these extreme temperatures are eroding the bottom line of our small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is not speculation - the data are stark:

  1. Agriculture & agri-food – The 2022 heat/drought season slashed French cereal output 10.9% in volume, and spring crops such as maize and sunflower plunged 28%. In June 2025, 91 % of Belgian territory was already on drought alert, with water-pumping bans threatening wheat, maize and soybeans.
  2. Tourism, hospitality & retail – July 2023 saw hotel overnight stays in southern France drop 5% and campground stays 10% as holiday-makers fled suffocating heat. Mid-day city shopping also collapses on hot days, shifting revenue to late evenings and to cooler coastal towns.
  3. Construction & outdoor trades – 65% of Belgian construction firms report ~10% productivity loss at 25–29°C; once the thermometer hits 35°C, one in five sites shuts down altogether.
  4. Manufacturing, logistics & transport – Repeated heat waves lower water levels, squeezing barge capacity and spiking freight costs for French and Belgian import-export SMEs. Simultaneously, base-load power prices jump as cooling demand surges.
  5. Office-based services – Heat increases accident risk, cognitive lapses and stress for indoor workers, while air-conditioning loads inflate OPEX and raise blackout risk in dense urban “heat-islands.”
With less than 20% of heat-related business losses insured, these shocks hit balance sheets directly.

The risk is real - but widely underestimated

Despite mounting evidence, most SMEs still treat heat waves as a side issue. A recent survey of French SME/ETI leaders found only 24% feel vulnerable to extreme heat, and a mere 12 % maintain a formal adaptation plan. The mismatch is dangerous for workers and for your business.

Heat is already eroding revenue (via lost tourism or retail footfall), raising operating costs (via cooling demand and power prices), and creating legal exposure: employers have specific legal obligations to protect workers during heatwaves - non-compliance can lead to sanctions. Fines and work-stoppage orders are real.

Being reactive is costly - planning is cheaper

Too often, SMEs react only after suffering a destroyed harvest, a blown freight invoice or a labour-inspection penalty. Yet adaptation need not be expensive:

  1. Low-cost engineering controls – Shade sails, reflective roof coatings and night-time ventilation typically pay for themselves in under three years through lower energy bills.
  2. Flexible scheduling & task rotation – Moving heavy outdoor work to early mornings can recover 5-10 % of daily productivity in construction and agriculture.
  3. Supply-chain hedging – Pre-booking alternative rail capacity on heat-sensitive routes or dual-sourcing temperature-critical inputs cushions shocks when river shipping falters.
  4. Parametric heat-index insurance – Automatically pays out when local temperatures breach pre-set thresholds, closing the uninsured gap without lengthy claims processes.
What’s missing is not technology, but awareness and planning.

Materiality analysis: your roadmap to smart decisions

A rigorous materiality assessment tells you which climate risks matter most for your business model, sites and supply chain. It turns scattered headlines into a ranked list of exposures and opportunities:

Materiality analysis of climate risks ​ for SMEs: financial impacts by risk type​

Armed with this analysis, leadership can prioritize: where to invest, what to insure, and which processes to change first.

Karomia can help you make heat risk visible - and actionable

At Karomia, we believe every SME should treat heat the way it treats any strategic risk: quantify it, plan for it, and act early. Our platform simplifies materiality analysis, mapping your exact exposure to heat-related hazards and translating those insights into tailored adaptation strategies - from quick-win engineering fixes to finance-grade risk disclosures.

The tools exist. The data are indisputable. The cost of inaction is rising. Put heat risk on your business radar before it hits your bottom line.

Future-Proof Your Business Today with Smarter ESG Reporting

Now, not tomorrow

For business owners and managers, environmental risks aren’t theoretical future concerns - they’re impacting your bottom line right now.

Your operational efficiency faces immediate risk: research across 23 advanced economies confirms that each extreme heat day measurably reduces labor productivity, with smaller businesses suffering the most severe impacts.

During the July 19, 2022 heatwave, cooling-water temperatures at the Doel nuclear site in Belgium soared, forcing operator Engie to reduce output by 1/2 overnight. One scorchingly hot day, and a cornerstone of the national grid had to throttle back - heat doesn’t just slow people down; it can knock critical infrastructure offline and cascade through production schedules and energy bills instantly.

Supply-chain resilience? When record floods tore through Wallonia in July 2021, two meters of water surged into Galler’s Liège chocolate plant, destroying machinery and stock, forcing a three-month production standstill that cost the company roughly €12 million. Simultaneously, road logistics across Belgium seized up: late shipments jumped 18% in the week the waters peaked, with warehouse dwell times climbing 14%.

Add incoming PFAS regulations that will require significant operational changes across multiple industries, and the business case is clear: assessing your risk exposure today, and addressing it through robust ESG reporting, prevents escalating costs tomorrow.

Your stakeholders need transparency now too

Banks are rewriting their risk models around ESG risk - EBA’s final guidelines land in January 2026, and financial institutions expect credible transition data well before then.

Insurers are sharpening premiums based on these same signals, while investors increasingly demand forward-looking climate and social metrics. If you’re a supplier to another company, they need to assess their supply chain too, making your ESG report essential for them as well.

Provide facts and credible plans to keep your financing costs low, insurance policies affordable, and purchase orders flowing - and secure a long-lasting competitive advantage. Stay vague and you pay through wider spreads, higher deductibles, or lost tenders.

True: sustainability reporting used to be a real pain

Double-materiality meant weeks of desk research before you could even see a risk map. ESRS spreadsheets ballooned into hundreds of line items. Draft-review-redraft cycles stole whole quarters from already-thin teams. Meanwhile everyone, from the bank to your customers, wanted their own format. No wonder most CEOs saw ESG reporting as an admin tax rather than a source of insights and competitive advantage.

Not anymore

Karomia fixes the grind. Its AI-driven platform absorbs all available information - from studies to documents you already have like policies, strategy presentation, prior ESG reports, even invoices - then auto-builds an ESRS- or VSME-aligned report in hours, not months.

You get:

  • A trustworthy double-materiality matrix for impact, risk, and opportunity assessment
  • A standard ESG report that tracks progress on your sustainability initiatives, so you can invest based on data, not the loudest voice
  • A single report that works for all stakeholders, eliminating duplicate questionnaires

About sixty companies have already slashed workload by up to 90% using Karomia, and preparing now saves significant time and money compared to last-minute compliance. Early adopters sail through at their own pace while others pay premium prices for rushed solutions and risk incomplete ESG reporting. With Karomia, you build an advantage that grows stronger as standards tighten.

Bottom line: the climate clock is ticking, stakeholders are watching, but the ESG reporting headache is optional. With Karomia, you nail compliance, reduce noise, and free your team to focus on real impact - starting today.

A Consolidated ESG Report or on Entity-Level?

Whether you run a two-entity scale-up or a sprawling multinational, sooner or later someone will ask, “Do we have to report ESG data for the whole group, or can we keep it to each legal entity?”

The question is more than a technical footnote: it determines data-collection scope, audit cost, and even your cost of capital. And you’re not alone, many mid-market businesses are currently wrestling with the very same dilemma as the EU rule-book shifts beneath their feet.

This guide unpacks how to choose between consolidated ESG reporting and entity-level sustainability disclosures - two paths that shape your ESG strategy, audit burden, and stakeholder communication.

The “old” world: CSRD assumed consolidation

Under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) that entered into force in 2023, group parents that met the size tests had to publish a consolidated sustainability statement covering all subsidiaries.

Article 29a of the amended Accounting Directive makes this explicit, carving out only narrow exemptions when the group is itself included in a higher-level report. Advisory notes from large law- and audit-firms quickly translated that into practice guidance: “If you’re in scope of CSRD, you publish one group-level ESG report.”

For a while, that clarity meant most ESG teams simply mirrored the statutory-consolidation perimeter used for financial accounts in their ESG reports and sustainability disclosures.

After the Omnibus: a patchwork of voluntary paths

Fast-forward to 2025 and the Omnibus proposal, part of the EU’s Bureaucracy-Reduction Package, has flipped the conversation. The draft text cuts back sector-specific ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards), limits value-chain look-through, and explicitly signals that non-CSRD companies may stick to voluntary ESG reporting. At the same time, the Commission has lifted the size-thresholds for “large” and “medium” undertakings by 25%, pulling thousands of SMEs out of the mandatory net.

Read more about the key changes from the Omnibus proposal in our CSRD guide.

EFRAG anticipated that vacuum: in December 2024 it delivered the VSME standard - a slimmed-down sustainability framework designed for unlisted micro, small, and medium enterprises falling below the new CSRD thresholds. For companies hovering well below the line, VSME is rapidly becoming the go-to ESG framework. But the VSME standard is silent on where you draw the boundary, leaving boards to choose between entity-level ESG reports and consolidated sustainability reports, often without legal compulsion either way.

Stakeholder-first: pick the perimeter that answers their question

When someone opens your ESG report, they rarely do it for curiosity’s sake. They’re looking for data to help answer, “Do I invest, lend, buy, regulate or work here?”

Different stakeholder groups therefore care about different slices of the business:

  • Investors & analysts — want decision-ready, comparable non-financial disclosures that show total exposure and ESG performance across the group. Fragmented data makes benchmarking difficult and can even appear as green-hushing.
  • Banks & other lenders — under the EBA’s Loan-Origination Guidelines, must price risk “at borrower level.” They require entity-specific ESG data that matches the legal counterparty they finance.
  • Customers & end-consumers — experience your brand, not your legal structure. They look for a single, group-level ESG narrative.
  • Employees & local communities — care about local impact. Site-specific ESG reporting builds trust and engagement.

With those differing lenses in mind, the choice of perimeter becomes a strategic communications decision:

Entity-level vs. consolidated ESG report​

Entity-level ESG reports

When it delights stakeholders:

  • Bank loans, project finance or green bonds are raised per legal entity
  • Subsidiaries operate in distinct sectors with very different ESG risk profiles
  • Local regulators or communities demand site-level transparency

Pros:

  • Pin-pointed risk assessment boosts credit pricing & insurance terms
  • Isolates high-risk operations from group-average KPIs
  • Easier to roll-up into a consolidated sustainability statement later

Cons:

  • More ESG reports to prepare and assure
  • Can confuse external stakeholders unfamiliar with your legal structure

Consolidated ESG reporting

When it delights stakeholders:

  • Core business is homogeneous across entities
  • Brand communication and investor relations happen at group level
  • Equity investors prefer comparability with peer group on a consolidated basis

Pros:

  • One holistic sustainability narrative
  • Simplifies reporting for equity analysts and end-users
  • Lower marginal cost than producing many stand-alone reports

Cons:

  • May obscure high-emission hotspots at the entity level
  • Lenders and regulators may still demand granular ESG data

Rule of thumb: start where your primary stakeholder lives. If your credit rating and funding terms hinge on bank relationships, prioritize entity-level ESG reporting. If brand perception or index inclusion is your key value driver, lead with a consolidated ESG report.

Practical takeaway: build from the bottom up

If you suspect you’ll need both views, start bottom-up: build robust entity-level ESG datasets first, then roll them up. Consolidated ESG reporting is seamless when you trust the underlying data. The reverse, breaking apart a group ESG report after the fact, is painful and risks inconsistent audit trails.

That’s why at Karomia, we advise clients to either:

  • Publish a single consolidated ESG report, or
  • Begin with entity-specific ESG reports and consolidate when needed.

Either way, let your key stakeholders guide the perimeter.

ESG Reporting Guide
Get the guide
ESG Reporting Guide

Complete Guide to ESG Reporting

DMA Guide

Comprehensive Guide to Double Materiality Assessments

CSRD Guide

Comprehensive Guide to Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

VSME Guide

VSME Standard for SMEs: A Practical Guide to ESG Reporting

Webinar Replays
Stakeholder Engagement Webinar

Learn in 30 minutes how to engage your stakeholders in an effective and efficient way during your Double Materiality Assessment.

‍

Omnibus & Your ESG Report: What’s Next?

Unpack the Omnibus proposal and its impact on your ESG reports. Learn how AI can do all the heavy lifting to get your report done.

‍

DMA Masterclass

Learn how to conduct a CSRD compliant but pragmatic double materiality assessment with our masterclass video

‍

CSRD Compliance

Watch our webinar replay to learn how to effectively and efficiently ensure compliance of your Double Materiality Assessment. With insights, practical tips, and strategies from Karomia.

‍

VSME: Het starterspakket voor jouw ESG-rapportage

Voor kmo’s buiten CSRD. Tips van Agoria, Steyaert-Heene en Karomia. Kijk terug.

‍

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La Lorraine Bakery Group

La Lorraine Bakery Group (LLBG), a Belgian family-owned company with over 85 years of expertise in the milling and bakery sector, partnered with Karomia to complete their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) and begin their CSRD gap analysis. With Karomia’s AI-powered platform, LLBG rapidly identified key Impacts, Risks, and Opportunities (IROs), reduced ESG team workload, and laid a solid foundation for their future CSRD compliance.

La Lorraine Bakery Group
Van Moer Logistics

Van Moer Logistics, a leading integrated logistics service provider, faced the complex task of completing their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) to meet CSRD reporting requirements. By leveraging Karomia’s AI-driven platform, they transformed a manual, time-consuming process into an efficient, streamlined workflow, saving time, reducing workload, and ensuring audit-ready compliance.

Van Moer Logistics
Agio Advisory

Agio, a leading consultancy in Belgium, partnered with Karomia to help Aluminium Duffel navigate the complex process of compliance. With Karomia’s automation capabilities and Agio’s expert guidance, the process became efficient, transparent, and compliant with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directives (CSRD).

Agio Advisory
Aluminium Duffel

Aluminium Duffel, a leading manufacturer of aluminum rolled products, turned to Karomia to simplify their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) process and ensure compliance with CSRD reporting. In just one weekend, Karomia’s innovative tool helped them finalize months of work, collect data from 56 stakeholders, and reduce administrative burden.

Aluminium Duffel
beMatrix

beMatrix, a leading provider of modular aluminum frames for temporary constructions, faced the overwhelming challenge of completing their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) as part of their CSRD reporting. With Karomia’s step-by-step platform, they streamlined the process, saving significant time and effort while achieving compliance with precision.

beMatrix
Karomia Partners
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Aluminium Duffel

Aluminium Duffel, a leading manufacturer of aluminum rolled products, turned to Karomia to simplify their Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) process and ensure compliance with CSRD reporting. In just one weekend, Karomia’s innovative tool helped them finalize months of work, collect data from 56 stakeholders, and reduce administrative burden.

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