Getting started is half the battle

New DNK guide: Five steps to your first VSME sustainability report

Acting with foresight is not a trend – it’s a core principle of good corporate governance. Companies that understand their supply chains, anticipate rising energy costs and keep an eye on regulatory developments are clearly better positioned. Sustainability reporting provides precisely this foundation: it reveals a company’s current position, highlights risks and dependencies, and identifies emerging opportunities and potential. Much like financial reporting, it therefore plays a central steering role.

Why voluntary sustainability reporting matters especially for SMEs

For small and medium‑sized enterprises, sustainability reporting primarily means improving the basis for good decision-making: Where are there dependencies, where can savings be made, where are the risks?

This becomes tangible in day‑to‑day business: suppliers who can answer their major customers’ ESG (environmental, social and governance) requests in a structured way; mechanical engineering companies that stand out in tenders with a sustainability report; a craft business that goes to a bank meeting armed with concrete figures. A digital report based on the Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non-listed Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (VSME) can cover multiple information requests from business partners, banks or insurance companies at the same time.  

Companies that know their sustainability data and can back it up are clearly at an advantage in such situations – regardless of whether they are legally required to report.

Once data-collection structures are in place, they create a foundation that will also support future reporting obligations. This is precisely where the new DNK guide ”Give it a try! Getting started with your sustainability report using the DNK’s VSME module” comes in. It helps SMEs begin reporting in a pragmatic, resource‑efficient way and gradually integrate sustainability as a management and learning process within the company.

The experiences from the DNK roadshows in Bavaria and Saxony reveal a clear pattern: the first report is where most uncertainty arises. Orientation is often lacking, as is a realistic sense of the actual effort involved – and the initial push to get started. The guide addresses these practical questions and translates them into five concrete steps to get you on your way.

Getting started: Five steps to your first sustainability report

Especially at the start, SMEs in particular often struggle to see which data is relevant and lack the initial momentum that gets the process moving. Following the idea that getting started is half the battle, the German Sustainability Code (DNK) presents this guide as a practical way to create a first, voluntary VSME sustainability report using the DNK Platform.

Step 1: Clarify roles and responsibilities

Who is responsible and who provides what?

Before you start gathering data, the first step is to establish clarity within your organisation: assign responsibilities and decide who will coordinate the process across different sites and subsidiaries. Whether centrally managed or shared across several people, what matters is that responsibilities are defined early and all relevant areas – such as HR, controlling, energy or production – are actively involved in consultation with management. This step creates commitment across departments and makes collaboration easier later on.

Step 2: Get orientated and set up your starter profile

How do I navigate the DNK Platform?

In this second step, you familiarise yourself with the DNK Platform and set up your starter profile. You create an initial report and enter basic company information such as number of employees, revenue, legal form and sector. This helps you actively learn the platform’s navigation structure. Through the company view, you can also invite additional people to collaborate on the report and bring everyone involved on board from the start.

Step 3: Get an overview of the data points

What do I need to report – and what can I skip?

The third step helps you orientate yourself in terms of content. The VSME standard consists of a Basic Module and an optional additional module. From the latter, the Comprehensive Module, you can select only the data points that are relevant to your company. The VSME’s “If applicable” principle identifies topics that you only have to report on if they genuinely apply to your business. On the platform, the principle is implemented directly by allowing non-relevant data points to be hidden.

Step 4: Gather your data and enter it into the platform

How do I turn scattered, unstructured data into a consistent format?

Much of the information you need already exists – just distributed across different systems and documents, from energy bills to HR tools, fleet records and controlling reports. The fourth step is about bringing these items together, structuring them and entering them into the platform in a systematic way. The DNK Platform doesn’t collect the data for you, but it does provide clear guidance on which information to enter and in which format and unit.  

Step 5: Finalise the report

How do you turn data points into a convincing sustainability report?

The fifth and final step ties everything together: the DNK Platform turns the data you have prepared into a publication‑ready sustainability report in your corporate design – complete with foreword, logo and company‑specific transitions. You can also submit your finished report for the voluntary DNK plausibility check, where independent experts review it for consistency, clarity and coherence.

Finishing the report is only the beginning

Even after your reviewed report is published, the process continues: Your first report becomes a valuable basis for tenders, collaborations and inquiries from banks and business partners, for credible external communication and for advancing your sustainability strategy.