CSDDD
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
The CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/1760) requires very large companies to identify, prevent and address human rights and environmental harms in their own operations and their chain of activities. Since Omnibus I, it covers companies with more than 5,000 employees and more than €1.5 billion in net turnover.
The directive was adopted in 2024, then narrowed by the Omnibus I directive in February 2026. Member States must transpose it by July 26, 2028, and companies must apply it from July 2029.
Due diligence means mapping risks, prioritizing the most severe and likely ones, taking measures to prevent or end them, setting up a complaints mechanism, monitoring the results and reporting on them. It builds on the OECD Guidelines and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Even out of scope, suppliers feel the CSDDD through their customers: codes of conduct, contract clauses and supplier questionnaires carry the requirements down the chain.