what exactly is esgia's capcheck

Each question is assessed to determine whether it may be asked

The capcheck is the first step on esgia: an entrepreneur pastes the questionnaire they received from a customer, bank, or insurer, and each question is assessed to determine whether that question falls within the VSME basic module of EFRAG. This is the voluntary EU standard for non-listed SMEs. Questions that fall within it proceed to the next step. Questions that fall outside it — meaning they ask for more or greater detail than the basic module requires — are marked with a formulation that the entrepreneur can use to indicate that the question goes beyond the standard.

The capcheck does not answer the questions and says nothing about the company's energy bill, fuel receipts, or payroll records. That step comes later, in the dossier. The capcheck only looks at the questionnaire itself: which question fits which part of VSME, and which does not. Anyone who wants to know how that questionnaire is pasted in exactly will find that on the page about how do I paste the questionnaire I received into esgia. The capcheck and the knowledge base can be used without an account; building the dossier and answering the questionnaire are the components that follow.

Why the VSME standard is used as the benchmark

The reason the capcheck specifically tests against the VSME basic module follows from the amendment of March 2026 in the sustainability reporting directive (CSRD, Directive (EU) 2022/2464): a company subject to reporting obligations may not require a supplier with a thousand employees or fewer to provide more sustainability information than is contained in that voluntary standard. The capcheck applies that benchmark to each question individually. What a question specifically asks — for instance about energy consumption or emissions in scope 1, 2 or 3 according to the GHG Protocol classification — determines whether it falls within the basic module. More about the background to that benchmark is on the page can my client ask all the sustainability questions he wants, and what VSME as a standard precisely entails is described on what is VSME and what does it have to do with me.