ExxonMobil is ramping up its fight against the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD) law, warning it will push businesses out of Europe, Reuters reported today.
The directive, which adopted last year, compelled companies to address human rights and environmental issues in their supply chains or face fines of at least 5% of global turnover.
Brussels has proposed easing the rules after opposition from businesses and leaders in France and Germany.
But ExxonMobil CEO, Darren Woods, maintained that was not enough and that he wanted the law to be completely scrapped.
- Advertisement -
Already, he has raised the issue with United States President, Donald Trump and other U.S. officials, who have flagged the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive in trade talks with the EU, adding to tensions between Washington and Brussels.
Woods said: “We have slowly been pulling out of Europe”, noting that the oil producer has sold, shut down or exited nearly 19 operations due to what he said was red tape impeding business.
He stressed: “This is another piece of legislation that would accelerate that incentive, or warrant businesses to reduce their activity in Europe.”
Reuters reported that the European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil is suspending one million Euros in European plastics recycling investments, saying draft EU rules on recycled content discriminate against using existing petrochemicals sites versus standalone facilities.
At issue is a draft law to calculate the recycled content based on the mass of waste going into the system and the mass of the output.
ExxonMobil says it significantly favours standalone technologies where the path from plastic waste to output is clearer and penalises more complex integrated facilities into which fossil feedstocks are fed.
