Exclusions from CSDDD undermine Green Deal

Seen in picture: Francisco Álvarez, former director of the Paris Stock Exchange, former president of the European Association of Regional Stock Exchanges and spokesperson of the Economy for the Common Good.

Excluding the financial sector and sustainability incentives for managers from the CS3D undermines the Green Deal

The European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs plans to adopt its negotiating position on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) on 13 March and will decide on key aspects of the proposal in the coming weeks. The Economy for the Common Good movement (ECG) calls on MEPs to vote for the inclusion of the financial sector and for incentives that ensure managers promote the common good.

Work on the CS3D is in full swing in the European Parliament. Most associated committees have adopted their reports on 24 and 25 January and in the leading Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), the drafting process of compromise amendments has started. In the run-up to the vote in the JURI Committee, planned for 13 March, some political parties push to exclude financial undertakings from the proposal’s scope and reject the idea of linking managers’ remuneration to a companies’ sustainability performance – a step that according to the ECG would fundamentally counteract the EU’s regulatory efforts to achieve a more sustainable and social financial and economic system.:

The final text should:

Include the financial sector in the scope

Francisco Álvarez, former director of the Paris Stock Exchange, former president of the European Association of Regional Stock Exchanges and spokesperson of the Economy for the Common Good says: “How can it be out? Cutting out the financial sector relating to sustainability aspects and the responsibilities of financial managers in particular, is like saying we don’t need gasoline to run the majority of the existing engines. ’Sustainable finance’ is a strategic hotspot of the current EU policy –to exclude the finance sector would undermine the foundations of the Green Deal, the Sustainable Finance Action Plan, and the Taxonomy. The year 2022 will go down in history as the year in which number five and six of the nine planetary boundaries were crossed. The time for lazy compromises is over.”