European Parliament’s recommendations on deforestation and sustainable corporate governance: complementary yet with necessary differences

In the past six months, the European Parliament has adopted two landmark resolutions to reduce the EU domestic and global environmental footprint and better protect human rights.

In plenary session on 22 October 2020, the European Parliament adopted the legislative initiative report with recommendations to the Commission on an EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation (the “Deforestation Report”), with 377 votes in favour, 75 against and 243 abstentions.

In plenary session on 10 March 2021, the European Parliament adopted the legislative initiative report with recommendations to the Commission on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability (the “Corporate Governance Report”), with 504 votes in favour, 79 against and 110 abstentions.

This briefing explores the complementarity of and differences between those two reports and what role
they should play in the development of upcoming legislative proposal on the respective matters.