Replacing a CSRD Consultant Mid-Project Without Losing Work

You are six months in. The double materiality assessment is late, the senior partner you met in the pitch has not been on a call since spring, and the scope you signed for has changed under you anyway. Someone on your team has started asking whether you should just switch.

You might. But the expensive mistake is rarely staying too long. It is leaving without the work: the files, the evidence and the reasoning behind each judgement, which is what an auditor will eventually ask to see. This guide is for the days between "this is not working" and "the new team has started". It starts after signature; if you are still choosing, read how to hire a CSRD consultant instead.

Fix, re-scope or replace?

Before you give notice, work out which of three problems you have. They need different responses.

It is the people. Seniority has drifted, deadlines slip without explanation, or you cannot get a straight answer on status. Start with a written escalation: name the deliverables that are late, ask for the named senior person to be back on the work, and set a date. If nothing changes in a couple of weeks, you have your answer, and a paper trail.

It is the scope. The engagement was sized for a company in scope of the original CSRD, and your obligations have since shrunk or moved. Nobody is failing; the contract is just too big. This calls for a re-scope, not a replacement. Check where you stand in the Omnibus simplification guide, then ask your consultant to re-price what is left. A good one will say what can be dropped. A defensive one will tell you something about the relationship.

It is the model. A retainer where you cannot see what the days buy, or a fixed price that makes every question a change order, is a structure problem. A different consultant on the same structure will fail the same way. Re-read the options in CSRD consultant engagement models and decide what shape you want before you pick who.

If it is genuinely people, or a model that the consultant will not change, replace. If it is scope, re-scope first. You can still switch afterwards.

Be honest about your own side too. Late data from your teams, slow sign-off and a missing internal owner produce the same symptoms as a weak consultant, and a replacement will inherit them. If the delays trace back to your own side, fix that first, or the new engagement will stall in the same place.

What your contract already says

Pull the signed contract and the scope appendix before you say anything to anyone. You are looking for four things:

• Notice and termination. How much notice, and whether you can end it for convenience or only for cause.
• What you receive on exit. Whether the contract lists files, data and working papers you are owed.
• Ownership and reuse. Who owns the deliverables and the data behind them, and whether anything sits inside tooling you lose access to.
• The change-order history. Every approved and unapproved variation. This shows what has actually been agreed, which often differs from what you remember.

Do not treat this post as legal advice; termination and ownership rules vary by jurisdiction, so have someone with authority read the clauses, not just the summary. The clauses themselves, and how to compare them, are covered in how to compare CSRD consulting proposals, which is also a useful yardstick for how yours measured up.

Get these before you give notice

Once you give notice, goodwill drops and access can narrow. Ask for the working material first, framed as normal project governance ("we are preparing for our audit committee review"), while the relationship still works. A checklist:

• DMA working files. The method, the scoring sheets, the thresholds and the final matrix, in editable form, not just the PDF. See double materiality assessment for what a complete file looks like.
• The IRO long list. Impacts, risks and opportunities as first identified, including the ones that were screened out and why.
• Stakeholder records. Who was consulted, when, how, and what they said. This is the part that is hardest to recreate.
• Data model and mappings. Data points in scope, the source system for each, owners, and any calculation logic.
• Evidence folders. The documents each disclosure rests on, in a structure someone else can follow.
• Logins and tooling. Anything holding your data on the consultant's platform: export it now.
• Your own records. Invoices, approved change orders, status reports and key emails, saved on your side.

Do not hold back payment against this list as a pressure tactic without checking your contract. Withholding can put you in the wrong. Ask, in writing, and keep the reply. If the answer is no, that is useful information for your contract review, and a reason to involve whoever owns the relationship on your side.

The handover pack

The point of the pack is to make the project's state independent of any one person's memory. Whoever picks it up should be able to read it in ten minutes and know where to start.

You will write this yourself or with your consultant's cooperation, and it is the single most useful thing in the switch. One page. It does not need to be polished; it needs to be true.

1. Status per ESRS topic. For each topic in scope: not started, in progress, drafted, or reviewed. One line on what is missing.
2. Open judgements. The calls that are not settled: materiality edge cases, boundary questions, estimates awaiting data. Say who owns each decision.
3. Auditor and external contacts. Your assurance provider, if appointed, and anyone else with a stake in the outputs, with the last thing each was told.
4. Where everything lives. The folder, the owner, and the access list.

If you cannot fill a line, write "unknown". An honest "unknown" is more useful to a replacement than a confident guess that turns out wrong in week four.

What the replacement needs in week one

The first week decides whether a switch costs weeks or months. Have these ready before they start:

• Access. To systems, shared folders, the people on your side and, where relevant, your auditor.
• The pack. The handover page above and the recovered files, so they are reviewing rather than discovering.
• One decision owner. A named person on your side with the authority to settle open judgements. Much of the delay in a failing project is decisions waiting for nobody.
• A re-baselined plan. The old plan is fiction now. Agree what is done, what is left and the dates that still matter, using the phases in the CSRD implementation roadmap as the skeleton.

Tell your auditor about the change early, if one is appointed. A new consultant is not a problem for them; surprises in the evidence trail are. A short note on who is taking over, and when, keeps that conversation calm.

Ask the new consultant to spend the first week reviewing and reporting back what they found, before they commit to a fixed price on the remainder. They will price it better, and you will learn quickly if the earlier work stands.

Finding the replacement fast

Do not rerun the whole selection. Shortlist by the gap you are filling:

• The gap is the DMA. Look for someone who has run assessments end to end and can review one critically.
• The gap is data. Look for people who build data models and collection processes across your systems.
• The gap is assurance readiness. Look for someone who has worked with auditors on limited assurance.

The directory lists experts by ESRS skill, so each gap maps to a page: double materiality assessment and assurance experts are a click away, and the gap analysis page covers the rest. That turns a search into a shortlist in a day. Then screen two or three with questions to ask a CSRD consultant, using your handover pack as the thing they must react to. Their questions about it tell you more than their credentials do.

If procurement rules force a formal tender, use the CSRD consultant RFP template, but keep it short. The handover pack is the brief: it already says what is done, what is left and what you need.