XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is the XML-based standard for machine-readable business and financial reporting, used by securities regulators worldwide for filings. Its Inline XBRL profile embeds tagged data in human-readable documents, and it is the format the EU’s CSRD requires sustainability statements to be tagged in — making it the one genuinely machine-readable artifact in the climate-disclosure stack.
XBRL
XBRL, eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is the XML-based standard for machine-readable business and financial reporting, and it is used by securities regulators worldwide for filings. Its Inline XBRL profile embeds tagged data inside a human-readable document, so one artifact serves both the reader and the machine.
- Taxonomies carry the meaning - The specification defines the mechanics; a taxonomy such as US GAAP or IFRS defines what each tag means.
- Inline XBRL - iXBRL is now the dominant deployment, tagging inside XHTML rather than shipping a separate instance document.
- Mandated, not adopted - The SEC, HMRC, ESMA and dozens of other regulators require it. That requirement is the entire adoption story.
- The CSRD tagging format - The EU requires sustainability statements to be tagged in XBRL, which makes it the one genuinely machine-readable artifact in the climate-disclosure stack.
I keep coming back to XBRL when I look at sustainability reporting, because it is the exception that proves the rule. GHG Protocol, GRI and ISSB all specify content and stop. XBRL is the only place the content becomes a structured document a machine can validate — and it got there because a regulator required a filing format, not because the standard-setters chose one.
Industry: Finance
Also in the data model catalog
This standard shows up on both sides of the house — as a standard applied in API operations here, and as a data model defining what information exists. Same standard, two lenses.
See it as a data model →