CSDDD Guidelines

Consultation on the CSDDD Guidelines ran for two months and closed on 14 August 2026. Only 11 responses came in from Poland, which, against a total of 512 responses, does not look impressive. It seems we are once again forgetting that you must take an active part in shaping EU law if you want it to work in your favour, instead of grumbling afterwards about "the bureaucrats in Brussels". The shape of the guidelines will depend far more on what organisations and companies from Germany, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom expect (the four countries with the largest number of responses, leaving aside Belgium, which as usual submitted the most, given that it hosts the headquarters of pan-European organisations) than on the personal views of Commission officials.

The MATERIALITY Due Diligence Team has of course prepared a response. You can read it in full in this document. It also expands on some of the points where the character limits in the Commission's questionnaire did not allow for a more elaborate answer. We responded to 44 of the 57 questions. Discussing all of them would take several further editions of this newsletter, so I will focus on the three issues I consider most important.

1. We call on the Commission to make the fullest possible use, when drafting the CSDDD guidelines, of the due diligence mechanisms embedded in instruments such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Companies have known and applied them for years. Many undertakings already have due diligence systems in place (working better or worse) built on these instruments. The worst possible outcome of the Commission's work would be the creation of new requirements that are inconsistent with what companies have been preparing for over many years.
2. The Commission should also rely as far as possible on the terminology used in the ESRS. This applies, for example, to metrics. Rather than creating a new set of them, it is worth building on the metrics already defined in the reporting standards. The Commission should, however, fill the gaps; for instance, by proposing in the guidelines metrics for assessing impacts on workers in the value chain, affected communities, and consumers and end-users. These, after all, are not in the ESRS.
3. The guidelines should help shape relationships between companies subject to the CSDDD requirements and their smaller business partners in a way that does not create additional burdens for those smaller undertakings. Large companies should not push onto their smaller partners all the costs of implementing a due diligence system, nor the responsibility for mitigating and remediating every negative impact. Costs should be shared fairly, always taking into account the relative scale of the two entities.

Less than three years remain until the CSDDD is fully operational, and the directive's direct scope of application has been heavily narrowed. I am afraid these two factors may catch a lot of companies badly off guard. First, most companies will conclude that if the CSDDD does not apply to them directly, then it does not concern them at all. In reality, the directive will affect a very large share of companies; above all those sitting in the supply chains of larger business partners. Second, just under three years is not a lot of time. Now is the moment to shape the guidelines on the basis of which larger business partners will set requirements for us. If we do not take an interest now, all that will be left later is the need to adapt to those expectations 😊

P.S. (1) In September, UN Global Compact Network Poland is running a four-day training course Sustainability in Practice. The individual sessions take place on 1, 2, 16 and 17 September. You can sign up for the whole course or for a selected day. The programme is excellent and packed with presentations and workshops delivered by outstanding speakers. As part of this course, on 16 September, together with Marta Kęsik, I will present a practical approach to the simplified ESRS.

P.S. (2) Entries for the Sustainability Reports competition organised by the Responsible Business Forumare open until 9 September. This is already the twentieth edition of the largest and oldest competition in Poland in which you can have your report assessed. It is well worth it!