Dr. Chris O'Connell:

There are calculations of approximately 70 companies. Again, we are talking about the largest companies and corporate groups. In terms of change being hard, I take that point.

However, it must be borne in mind that human rights due diligence has been existence for a long time. Many companies have been doing this for a long time. The CSDDD would put this on a statutory and legislative footing so that it creates a common duty and a level playing field because it was quite clear the voluntarily approach set out in the UN guiding principles and the OECD guidelines has not worked to prevent and mitigate the harms we have already discussed. There are fine details that are different within the CSDDD but it is something that is already in existence and the omnibus proposal would significantly weaken it, as we have mentioned.

In terms of the consumers, the part that has been missing for a long time around this sort of action has been a duty on the companies. We have had a lot of initiatives over the years for consumers. That is part of the solution but again, we have seen the limitations of that over the years and the limits on information in particular. I return to my earlier comments on stakeholder engagement. The omnibus proposal would remove consumers as a directly affected stakeholder and, therefore, companies would not need to consult with consumers as part of the due diligence process whereas the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, as it currently stands, includes them. That is something we would like to see retained in the stakeholder engagement.