ESG Conference 2025: a conversation with Pascal Durand

Sara Carnegie (SC): Pascal Durand is a French lawyer and Co-Founder of the Europe Ecologie les Verts party, elected to the European Parliament in 2014 and re-elected in 2019. During this second mandate, he was a rapporteur on the revision of the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, an ambitious legislation bringing clarity on companies’ disclosure obligations concerning the social and environmental impacts of their operations. Monsieur Durand is currently Vice President of the Greens/EFA group and a prominent advocate for climate, environmental protection, transparency and animal welfare. He has played a key role in shaping EU sustainability legislation. At the IBA ESG Conference in Paris, he contributed to the primer, supporting legal expertise, sustainability reporting and due diligence. 

SC: Thank you for joining us today, Pascal Durand. I’d like to hear a little bit more about what your thoughts are on the CSRD, because you were instrumental in shaping that. And given its broad extraterritorial reach, how do you see global companies, particularly non-EU companies, navigating its requirements in practice? 

Pascal Durand (PD): I think it’s very important to share standards and norms with other countries. But it’s very important to the European Union to say what is important for us and what kind of future economy we see. And after that, we can discuss with all companies around the world in practice. 

SC: Thank you. With the recent EU Omnibus Package, there’s a growing debate over-simplification versus ambition in sustainability reporting. From your perspective how do you think we strike the right balance between ensuring legal clarity but also maintaining pressure for genuine environmental and human rights best practice? 

PD: We have a problem of comprehension, of capacity to understand what we want to do with CSRD and sustainability reporting. So, at this stage, I think it’s very important to explain, what is the aim of the market? I think we have to see what we can do with the data, with the information, and after that, we can search [for] a new balance, or something more efficient between simplification and ambition. But it’s not contradictory. We can have simplification, and keep ambition. I hope so. 

SC: I think we’re entering into a world of contradictions, which is a big challenge here. What do you think lawyers can and should be doing to really embed strong disclosure practices, notwithstanding some of these challenges and changes? Do you have any tips for our audience and our lawyers about how they can make a positive impact in this space? 

PD: It’s a very good question. For the CSDDD we have to appreciate what the material impact is; it’s a job for a lawyer. But I think the most important role for the lawyer is in the CSDDD because you have to analyse, examine the value chain and the chain of contracts. So, it’s the job of a lawyer to imagine what kind of risk, legal risk, what kind of human rights risk? What kind of contract you have to define for your responsibility. So, I think it’s about the capacity to analyse the chain of contracts and values, so the lawyer can have [the] biggest role for the question of responsibility on the value chain.

SC: I think from our perspective, looking at the work that you’ve done in the space, it’s about aiming for the highest, if not the lowest, common denominator in the process. Do you have anything else that you’d like to add today? 

PD: Just to comment, I think it’s [a] bad time for environmental and social and human rights in the political sector, because we have no debate: it’s ideological, and it’s not easy. And I hope that for the market, for the lawyers, for undertaking in general, it will not be the same. And we need reasonable discussion. We need interaction between all stakeholders. And yes, I hope the political sector in general, the politician will not be so important in the future of the question of sustainability in general.