ICGN Urges EU to Embrace Progress with Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Update

The ICGN supports the overall direction of the CS3D and welcomes both its use of established due diligence protocols and its consistency with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

London, United Kingdom: ICGN’s Statement on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive supports the comprehensive and rigorous due diligence standard set out in this Directive and makes a series of further recommendations to support advances in the governance of sustainability.

The International Corporate Governance Network is today calling for further revisions to the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) as the institutions of the European Union enter into the final phase of its development.

The ICGN supports the overall direction of the CS3D and welcomes both its use of established due diligence protocols and its consistency with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). At the same time, the ICGN notes important new developments in the field of corporate sustainability over the past year. Maintaining that the Directive should reflect these developments, the ICGN calls for:

• The inclusion of a definition of corporate sustainability in Article 3 of the Directive as there is considerable market and public confusion over the meaning of this term;
• Going beyond climate change metrics in setting executive and director remuneration; the Directive should make room for companies to link pay to additional sustainability goals, where material;
• Specifying the main components of the governance of sustainability due diligence procedures; these should include the incorporation of sustainability-related responsibilities into board and committee mandates and processes for establishing requisite corporate sustainability expertise on the board; and
• Ensuring that the Directive promulgates a due diligence standard that is consistent with international corporate sustainability reporting standards now under rapid development internationally. Capital markets are global. To advance corporate sustainability, due diligence and reporting standards must guard against contradictions and ensure inter-operability for global issuers.

“The world is facing a multiplicity of environmental and social crises related to economic activity” said Robert Walker, ICGN’s Sustainability Policy Manager. “The EU is rising to the occasion and providing global leadership on corporate sustainability. But this world is moving at a fast pace and standards must both reflect recent developments and anticipate new ones.”