Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence

The behaviour of companies will have a substantial impact on our ability to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Extreme poverty and human rights violations still prevail in many global supply chains and to disrupt this trend, it is essential that companies are held accountable for their conduct.

To tackle this challenge, the European Union has been negotiating the world's first binding due diligence legislation - the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). After years of negotiation, the Directive was passed in spring 2024 and entered into force on 25 July 2024. However, in February 2025, the CSDDD was reopened as part of an “Omnibus sustainability simplification package”, amidst criticism from companies, civil society and rights holders alike that reopening the Directive for negotiations now was premature and provided legal uncertainty.

The Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) is committed to ensuring that the CSDDD will truly support global supply chain resilience, improve risk management practices and, most importantly, translate into meaningful improvements for the livelihoods of millions of rightsholders around the world.

Our View

The FTAO welcomes the development of the CSDDD and is working to ensure that it is designed and implemented in a way that tangibly improves the lives of rights holders. Throughout the negotiation process and during future implementation, we are committed to advocating for smallholder-farmer-inclusive implementation, and for co-designing appropriate measures to help address the challenges and maximise the impact of this legislation within and beyond European borders.

We believe sustainable corporate governance legislation should address the root causes of human rights violations and lead to a real shift in companies’ practices. To achieve this, it is essential to focus on eliminating harmful purchasing practices that perpetuate exploitation across supply chains. We also stand firmly that due diligence legislation must bring about positive change on the ground for small farmers and workers, and therefore strongly advocate for the right to a living income to be translated into reality.