'Cocoa Coalition joint position paper The proposed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive', 19 Sept 2022

The signatories to this position paper welcome the publication of the proposed EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence...

Although the proposed Directive builds on the approach set out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct, it diverges from them in important respects. For us, this is its main weakness...

We therefore believe that the restriction to ‘established business relationships’ should either be removed or reworded to make it clear that companies are obliged to conduct due diligence across their entire supply chain...

We believe that the Directive should incentivise companies regularly to review their purchasing models, with the aim of encouraging the inclusion of social and environmental externalities in the contracts and closing the gap to living income... We believe that references to purchasing and pricing strategies designed to help deliver the objectives of the Directive should be included throughout the due diligence process described in it...

We believe that the Directive should more clearly recognise the need for meaningful and continuous engagement with affected stakeholders or their legitimate representatives: an ongoing process of interaction and dialogue between a company and its actually or potentially affected stakeholders that enables the company to hear, understand and respond to their interests and concerns, including through collaborative or joint approaches between a company and its suppliers... A stronger requirement for meaningful and continuous engagement should be written into the Directive as part of each stage of the due diligence process. Special efforts should be made to engage with particularly vulnerable groups, including smallholders and indigenous peoples and local communities, and engagement strategies should be gendersensitive...

[T]he Directive should require member states to fulfil the provisions of the UN Guiding Principles whereby states must take appropriate steps to ensure those affected by abuses have access to effective remedy through judicial, administrative, legislative and other appropriate means, including provisions for civil liability...