Overview
The CSDDD turns responsible business from a voluntary aspiration into a legal duty for large companies. They must look across their operations and value chains, find where people or the environment are being harmed, and do something about it.
The heart of the directive is due diligence as an ongoing process. A company maps its impacts, prevents or mitigates the worst, brings actual harms to an end, and keeps checking, rather than signing a one-off declaration.
What companies must do
Where it sits
The CSDDD is the broad, cross-sector version of an idea that already exists in narrower laws. The due diligence approach it codifies runs through targeted rules such as the Conflict Minerals Regulation for 3TG and the EU Deforestation Regulation for forest-risk commodities. Those laws ask for diligence on a specific problem, while the CSDDD sets a general expectation across human rights and the environment.
Note: general educational information, not legal advice. Check the official source before relying on it.