The European Union has taken the lead in responding to the global challenges of growing waste and diminishing resources by adopting a key framework promoting packaging sustainability; namely the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the "PPWR").
Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 (the "Regulation") was recently published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It is intended to remove forced labour from European supply chains. The Regulation assures that products resulting from forced labour will not be tolerated in the EU's internal market and in its exports.
On 26 February 2025, the European Commission published a proposal to streamline sustainability regulations, aim-ing to ease compliance burdens while maintaining climate and policy objectives.
The European Commission is preparing an "Omnibus Simplification Package" to address widespread concerns about the regulatory burden on businesses under the EU’s sustainability framework. Announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in November 2024, this initiative seeks to reduce redundancies and stream-line reporting requirements and due dili-gence obligations.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 ("EU Deforestation Regulation") was originally scheduled to enter into force on 30 December 2024. However, shortly before its effective date, its entry-into-force was postponed by Regulation (EU) 2024/3234 to 30 December 2025 for large companies and to 30 June 2026 for micro and small companies.
The Draft Commission Notice on the interpretation and implementation of certain legal provisions of the EU Taxonomy Environmental Delegated Act, the EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the EU Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act ("EU Taxonomy FAQs") was published by the European Commission on 29 November 2024. Its text can be read here.
In our previous post, we described a political agreement reached by the Council and the European Parliament on the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transparency and integrity of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating activities, and amending Regulations (EU) 2019/2088 and (EU) 2023/2859 (the "ESG Ratings Regulation"). On 19 November 2024, the ESG Ratings Regulation was formally adopted by the Council (see press release).
The Directive will become effective on 25 July 2024. Member States must incorporate the CSDDD into their national legal systems within two years of that date.
The original version of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD – 2022/2464) empowered the European Commission to adopt the following European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) by 30 June 2024:
In a significant development, the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on 5 February 2024 on the Commission's proposal for a Regulation on the transparency and integrity of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating activities dated 13 June 2023 (the "ESG Ratings Regulation") (see the Council press release).
