Preamble 91 to 99.
(91) The civil liability regime under this Directive should be without prejudice to Directive 2004/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (25). This Directive should not prevent Member States from imposing further, more stringent obligations on companies or from otherwise taking further measures having the same objectives as Directive 2004/35/EC.
(92) Member States should ensure that compliance with the obligations resulting from the provisions of national law transposing this Directive, or their voluntary implementation, qualifies as an environmental and/or social aspect or element that contracting authorities may, in accordance with Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, take into account as part of the award criteria for public and concession contracts or lay down in relation to the performance of such contracts.
Contracting authorities and contracting entities may exclude or may be required by Member States to exclude from participation in a procurement procedure, including a concession award procedure, where applicable, any economic operator, where they can demonstrate by any appropriate means a violation of applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour law, including those stemming from certain international agreements ratified by all Member States and listed in those Directives, or that the economic operator is guilty of grave professional misconduct, which renders its integrity questionable.
To ensure consistency of Union legislation and support implementation, the Commission should consider whether it is relevant to update any of those directives, in particular with regard to the requirements and measures Member States are to adopt to ensure compliance with the sustainability and due diligence obligations throughout procurement and concession processes.
(93) Persons who work for companies subject to due diligence obligations provided for in this Directive or who are in contact with such companies in the context of their work-related activities can play a key role in exposing breaches of the provisions of national law transposing this Directive.
They can thus contribute to preventing and deterring such breaches and strengthening the enforcement of this Directive. Directive (EU) 2019/1937 should therefore apply to the reporting of all breaches of the provisions of national law transposing this Directive and to the protection of persons reporting such breaches.
(94) To enhance legal certainty, the applicability, pursuant to this Directive, of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 to the reporting of breaches of the provisions of national law transposing this Directive and to the protection of persons reporting such breaches, should be reflected in Directive (EU) 2019/1937.
The Annex to Directive (EU) 2019/1937 should therefore be amended accordingly. It is for the Member States to ensure that that amendment is reflected in their transposition measures adopted in accordance with Directive (EU) 2019/1937.
(95) In order to specify the information that companies not subject to reporting requirements under the provisions on corporate sustainability reporting under Directive 2013/34/EU should be communicating on the matters covered by this Directive, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission in respect of determining additional rules concerning the content and criteria of such reporting, specifying information on the description of due diligence, actual and potential impacts and actions taken on those.
It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making (29). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.
(96) This Directive should be applied in compliance with Union data protection law and the right to the protection of privacy and personal data as enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter. Any processing of personal data under this Directive is to be undertaken in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679, including the requirements of purpose limitation, data minimisation and storage limitation.
(97) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 28(2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council (30) and delivered an opinion on 17 March 2022.
(98) The Commission should periodically report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the implementation of this Directive and its effectiveness in reaching its objectives, in particular in addressing adverse impacts.
The first report should cover, among others, the impacts of this Directive on SMEs, the scope of application of this Directive in terms of the companies covered, whether the definition of the term ‘chain of activities’ needs to be revised, whether the Annex to this Directive needs to be modified and the list of relevant international conventions referred to in this Directive should be amended, in particular in the light of international developments, whether the rules on combatting climate change and the powers of supervisory authorities related to those rules need to be revised, the effectiveness of the enforcement mechanisms put in place at national level, of the penalties and the rules on civil liability, and whether changes to the level of harmonisation of this Directive are required to ensure a level-playing field for companies in the internal market.
At the earliest possible opportunity after the date of entry into force of this Directive, but no later than two years after that date, the Commission should also submit a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the necessity of laying down additional sustainability due diligence requirements tailored to regulated financial undertakings with respect to the provision of financial services and investment activities, and the options for such due diligence requirements as well as their impacts, in line with the objectives of this Directive, while taking into account other Union legislative acts that apply to regulated financial undertakings. That report should be accompanied, if appropriate, by a legislative proposal.
(99) Since the objectives of this Directive, namely better exploiting the potential of the single market to contribute to the transition to a sustainable economy and contributing to sustainable development through the prevention and mitigation of actual or potential human rights and environmental adverse impacts in companies’ chains of activities, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, but can rather, by reason of the scale and effects of the action, in particular, the fact that the problems and the causes of those problems addressed by this Directive are of a transnational dimension, as many companies are operating Union wide or globally and their value chains extend to other Member States and to third countries, and the fact that individual Member States’ measures risk being ineffective and leading to fragmentation of the internal market, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives,
HAVE ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:
Note: This is the final text of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), published in the Official Journal of the European Union in July 2024.