Is the requirement to report the percentage distribution by gender a new EU requirement?

Under VSME, companies are asked to report on the gender composition of employees in section B8 – Workforce: General characteristics, which is part of the Basic module and applies to all reporting entities.

VSME is designed to be aligned with the EU’s main sustainability reporting framework (CSRD/ESRS), but in a simplified form tailored for SMEs (fewer than 1,000 employees).

For larger companies, this is already an explicit requirement under ESRS S1 – Own Workforce, where reporting the percentage gender distribution of employees is mandatory. Although ESRS is still pending final adoption, the latest updates (as of 30 November 2025) indicate that this requirement is very likely to remain in the final version.

Regarding the right to organise, this has also been raised by customers in the past. However, VSME and ESRS now clarify more explicitly that companies should be able to report the scope of this right (i.e. the share of the workforce it applies to), not only whether the right exists.

Extra info for companies in Norway:
All reporting must be done at an aggregated and anonymised level, in line with Norwegian legislation (including the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act, Section 26a).