is there a mark or body that approves this type of report

No organization approves this type of SME report

No, that organization does not exist. For an SME that completes a sustainability questionnaire based on the VSME standard, there is no official mark of conformity, certificate, or recognized verifier that approves the outcome — not at esgia, and not at any other provider. This is not a shortcoming of any particular platform; it is a characteristic of the VSME standard itself: it was designed as a voluntary tool for non-listed companies, and no approval system such as exists for mandatory reporting by large, listed enterprises is part of it.

That mandatory process, established in the CSRD, does include a form of external control: an accountant or assurance provider must give an opinion on the report. For the voluntary VSME basic module that SMEs use to answer questions from a customer, bank, or insurer, this mechanism is not in place. A basic report based on VSME is therefore a self-declaration by the company, supported by its own documents — not an externally certified document. Anyone wondering what VSME exactly is and what that has to do with the company's own reportingwill find there why the standard intentionally has this character.

Where this distinction in legislation comes from

This distinction follows directly from the design of Directive (EU) 2022/2464 (CSRD): that directive sets out the reporting obligation with assurance for the companies that fall under it, and does not provide that smaller suppliers who only answer a questionnaire from such a company are subject to comparable review. The VSME standard from EFRAG is specifically intended as a light, voluntary route for those smaller companies, without the control structure of the mandatory regime. A report based on this standard is therefore separate from a certification framework — though this does not mean that a customer cannot request to verify that the data are substantiated, see also whether a customer can simply ask any sustainability questions he wants.