In general term, some perplexity is generated by the will to ensure better work conditions and the protection of the environment, as, while they are not incompatible, the two purposes are heterogeneous and putting them together makes the Directive less strong. The criteria that are indicators of compliance with the two values are different and their combination causes a piece of legislation that is not easy to read, with a very challenging task for the Member States, which have to separate rather than put together the two profiles. Confirmation is given in Article 4, which should be the cornerstone of the new system and which contains very generic expressions that make the identification of due conducts quite precarious and leave a large creative space to both national legislators and courts. Therein the expression “due diligence” has a nearly juridically irrelevant meaning, as reference to corporate commitment to coordinating with interests conflicting with the production one and in need of being considered in setting operations. Versus the “diligence” category, due to the manner it is traditionally conceived in many legal systems, in the Italian for one, the setting of Article 5 of Directive 2024 / 1760 / EU is quite heterogeneous and the attempt to give a procedural form to the obligations laid down by the Directive is not consistent with the terms used and their usual meaning. Notwithstanding the use of “due diligence” as a summarizing and emblematic term, the duties that are envisaged and governed by the Directive do not amount to the implementation of diligence in the standard meaning it has in civil law and, ultimately, the same criticism may apply to the German and French models. It is no chance that one of the cornerstone provisions, laid down in Article 5(1)(c), requires companies to carry out due diligence also by “preventing and mitigating potential adverse impacts, and bringing actual adverse impacts to an end and minimising their extent in accordance with Article 10 and 11” and, in the obligation structure, which the implementing provisions should impose on economic agents (obviously within the limits the Directive is applicable), diligence is not mentioned. The request is not for any obligation measured by said parameter, but the provisions hold the protection of the considered values as the core ultimate result, without prejudice to the limits within which the related protection is imposed (see Article 1(1)(c). Indeed, in accordance with Article 1(1)(a), the system’s core consists of “obligations for companies regarding actual and potential human rights adverse impacts and environmental adverse impacts”, and the Directive aims at preventing said impacts. A contradiction may be seen here, which is however apparent only. 77 THE CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY DUE DILIGENCE DIRECTIVE
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