Pleasing nobody: The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

Article in: EURObiz online
As Europe enters a summer of political transition, one of its latest efforts to advance sustainability and human rights has not gone unnoticed. Jeremy Azzopardi, a student at the Western Academy of Beijing, investigates the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

On 23 February 2022, the European Commission proposed its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) seeking to advance the EU’s sustainability and social goals worldwide. Companies with at least euro (EUR) 450 million in net worldwide turnover and more than 1,000 employees will be required to proactively prevent or mitigate adverse impacts of all their operations on human rights, particularly child labour and worker exploitation, and on the environment, including pollution and biodiversity loss. Some companies will also need to craft business strategies in line with the 1.5 °C global warming temperature limit rise of the Paris Agreement. Penalties for violating the directive could exceed five per cent of net worldwide turnover. 

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