ClientEarth response to the consultation on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) guidelines

With the guidelines to support the implementation of the CSDDD, the Commission has a pivotal opportunity to:

• clarify the real breadth of environmental impacts with human rights implications under Part I and standalone environmental impacts under Part II of the Annex, in light of the triple planetary crisis;
• recommend tools and best practices to effectively map and assess risks, notably desk research from a wide range of credible information sources, and meaningful stakeholder engagement, including with rights-holders and reliable experts;
• provide guidance on the prioritisation of adverse impacts, for instance by recommending reliance on the best available science and identifying common instances of non-compliance leading to sanctions; and
• specify that, where environmental damage occurs, ecological restoration should be the default remedy, and that sufficient funding for remediation should be secured in advance to ensure that the harm is remedied without delay, before questions of cost allocation among contributing companies are addressed.