The Commission adopted a delegated act supporting the value chain cap on 3 July 2026. Its scope and application dates matter when interpreting a customer request. The explanation below is about that adopted text; it is not a blanket instruction to refuse a questionnaire today.
The phrase to learn is "protected undertaking"
The regulation splits the world in two. A reporting undertaking is a company inside mandatory sustainability reporting under the Accounting Directive. A protected undertaking is a company in that reporting company's value chain that does not have more than 1000 employees. If you are reading this, you are almost certainly the second kind.
Note what the threshold is not. It is not turnover, it is not listing status, and it is not whether you are an SME in the ordinary sense. A 900-person manufacturer is protected. So is a nine-person design studio.
Three things it gives you
- A ceiling. Reporting undertakings are, in the regulation's own word, prohibited from requiring information from you that exceeds what the voluntary standard asks for.
- A right. Protected undertakings have a statutory right to refuse to provide information that goes beyond those limits. Not a norm, not a guideline. A right written into an EU regulation.
- A duty on the person asking. A reporting undertaking that chooses to ask for more anyway must tell you which extra information is being requested and that you may decline it.
That third one is the quiet change. The burden of explaining an out-of-scope question has moved to the person asking it.
What it does not do
The cap is narrower than the relief it brings, and reading it as a blanket refusal will get you into trouble with a customer who is in the right.
- It does not stop voluntary sharing. Information that is commonly shared between companies in your sector can still be shared, and often should be.
- It does not touch contracts. If you agreed to supply something in a supply agreement, the cap does not release you from it.
- It does not override other law. Union or national law that requires you to provide information still applies.
- It only covers information gathered for the purpose of sustainability reporting under the Accounting Directive. A customer's quality audit is not a sustainability report.
When it starts
Two dates, because there are two audiences. For the value chain reporting of companies inside mandatory reporting, the act applies from financial year 2027. For a company with no more than 1000 employees that simply wants to report on a voluntary basis, it applies from the date the regulation enters into force.
The adopted text uses the financial year as the application boundary. Do not infer applicability from the date a questionnaire arrives; check its reporting period, purpose and the applicable rules.
The sentence to send back
Most procurement teams are not trying to overreach. They inherited a questionnaire written before any of this existed and nobody has had time to shorten it. A reply that names the rule and offers the alternative usually ends the exchange in one round.
We can share our sustainability report for the requested period. Please identify any additional information you need, its purpose and the reporting basis, so we can review the request.
Then have the report ready, because the sentence only works if the thing you are pointing at exists.
Joost Thissen
