What counts as waste diverted to recycling in disclosure B7 of the European Union (EU) voluntary standard for small companies (VSME)?

Count the waste you sort and send to recycling or reuse, not what the recycler finally recovers. The standard says to consider waste that is sorted and sent to recycling or reuse operators. Burning waste for energy is not recycling in its definition. VSME is the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group's Voluntary standard for non-listed micro-, small- and medium-sized undertakings.

The rule in plain words

Think of a school bag handed to the lost-and-found. What counts is what you hand over, not what the owner later gets back. The standard says that for waste diverted to recycling or reuse, you should consider the waste that is sorted and sent to recycling or reuse operators, rather than the waste that effectively gets recycled or reused.

So your number comes from your side of the gate: weighbridge slips, scrap sale bills, and recycler or collector receipts.

What does not count as recycling

The standard defines recycling as a recovery operation that reprocesses waste into products, materials or substances. It says this includes reprocessing of organic material but does not include energy recovery, or reprocessing into materials to be used as fuels or for backfilling. Our reading: waste sent to a cement kiln as fuel or to a waste-to-energy plant is therefore not diverted to recycling by that definition.

What B7 asks in all

• Whether you apply circular economy principles and how.
• Total annual waste generated, split into non-hazardous and hazardous.
• Total annual waste diverted to recycling or reuse.
• If you work in a sector with large material flows such as manufacturing, construction or packaging, the annual mass-flow of the relevant materials used.

Units and layout

The standard prefers weight, such as kilograms or tonnes, and allows volume (cubic metres) only if weight is unsuitable. Its table has total waste generated, with the part diverted to recycling or reuse and the part directed to disposal, for each waste type.

Example: a year of waste

• Waste generated: 120 tonnes
• Sorted and handed to recyclers or reuse buyers (slips and bills): 70 tonnes
• Directed to disposal: 120 minus 70 = 50 tonnes
• Reported as diverted: 70 tonnes, even if the recyclers recover less

Tonnes are an example.

What Senseible does here

Senseible fills the energy and emissions disclosure from fuel invoices and electricity bills. This disclosure is not part of it today; it comes from your own registers and papers.

• What is the VSME standard?
• Is used oil or a battery hazardous waste?
• If a disclosure does not apply, what do I write?

Sources: European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), Voluntary standard for non-listed micro-, small- and medium-sized undertakings (VSME), 2024 edition, 66 pages, paragraphs 37, 38, 168 to 170 and the definition of Recycling in Appendix A

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Facts are from the standard's own text, with the paragraph numbers named in the source line. The European Commission adopted its own standard for voluntary use in a Delegated Regulation of 3 July 2026, which is not in force until it is published in the Official Journal and may differ from this text, so ask your buyer which one it means. Our own readings are marked as such.