Greening EU Trade: with Didier Reynders, European Commission...

Brunswick Group and Europe Jacques Delors welcome you to join the third edition of our webinar series on how businesses can navigate the European Green Deal. We are delighted to announce that we will be joined on 2 June at 15:30 CEST / 14:30 BST by European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders and Paul Lister, Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary at Associated British Foods, a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group operating in 53 countries.

The EU’s Green Deal continues to accelerate the transformation of Europe’s growth model. It has already sped up the EU's ambitions to reduce emissions considerably and is setting a more binding framework for biodiversity conservation. As one important piece of the Green Deal puzzle, EU trade policy will have to closely track such changes. The EU is keenly aware that it will not be able to achieve the Green Deal objectives on its own. Consequently, the European Commission is preparing to take measures that ensure import compliance with the EU’s increasingly stringent domestic environmental regulations.

The panel will be invited to discuss how the EU should harness its market power when it comes to supply chain sustainability at the international level, whether through regulation, improved controls, encouragements and supervision of voluntary approaches, or new strategies such as due diligence obligations to ensure the sustainability of corporate supply chains.

An upcoming EU legislative proposal on Sustainable Corporate Governance could lead to the implementation of new business liability mechanisms, which would have a considerable impact on companies, their operations, and supply chain management and supervision. Unsurprisingly, industry associations went on record early to stress that any future EU legislative approach has to be “workable, proportionate and effective.”

For some environmental impacts, common definitions and standards will need to be found at the international level, requiring enhanced cooperation between private and public stakeholders as well as with civil society and NGOs. An intense exchange of ideas and information between the public and private sector will also be essential at the EU level to make sure the new regulatory framework is fit for purpose and reaches its targets.

As the discussion on supply chain due diligence is entering a new phase, we invite politicians, elected officials, decision-makers, business leaders, and civil society representatives to join us for a timely discussion on this important topic. The third edition in our webinar series will be again hosted and moderated by Geneviève Pons, Director General of Europe Jacques Delors in Brussels, and Pascal Lamy, Vice President of Europe Jacques Delors and Chair of Europe at Brunswick Group.