A “wrecking ball” has been dropped on European Union plans to stamp out workplace and environmental abuses in companies’ global supply chains after its biggest members watered down a new law, campaigners say.
The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, or CSDDD, was due to be approved this week but is now hanging in the balance after Germany, France, and Italy pulled support. Now NGOs and supportive lawmakers are worried that the legislation will be derailed altogether.
The crackdown was prompted in part by the role European companies played in tragedies including the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh and the 2019 failure of Brazil’s Brumadinho dam. It has already taken many years to reach the cusp of becoming law.