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Water resilience is becoming increasingly urgent, with global demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by 2030. For over two decades, Coca-Cola in Europe has worked to address this challenge through partnerships with more than 30 non-governmental organisations on over 100 projects across the continent. These initiatives range from restoring wetlands in the Danube Basin to supporting water-smart farming in Spain and Sicily. In a new report, Scaling for Impact, developed with GlobeScan, Coca-Cola Europe outlines key success factors for effective water stewardship partnerships. Discover how the company is helping to build a more resilient water future through collaboration and innovation on Invested in Europe. 

The European Parliament’s adoption of its negotiating position on the Omnibus I package marks a major milestone towards a simpler, more consistent and workable sustainability reporting and due diligence framework for companies operating across the Single Market. The final text, however, fails to reflect the concerns of third-country stakeholders and international businesses over extraterritorial effects.

The framework’s implementation risks creating legal uncertainty for global businesses and conflicts of law in different jurisdictions, thereby undermining the diversification of supply chains and chilling investment in the EU. Limiting the scope of the initiatives to an EU Nexus – in other words, making them apply only to those global supply chains directly linked to the EU market – will be critical to achieving sustainability and competitiveness goals.  

The Omnibus I is part of a wider agenda dedicated to improving the competitiveness of the EU’s economy. The Draghi report clearly outlined the pressing urgency of addressing Europe’s competitiveness challenges as a precondition for the EU realising its wider strategic objectives. Europe must act urgently to strengthen its economy and this can only work with ambitious simplification efforts. This imperative should transcend party political lines.  

As the Omnibus I now enters into trilogue discussions, policymakers must secure a strong mandate to improve the EU’s business environment.

While the European Parliament’s decision to return the first simplification package on the CSDDD and the CSRD to plenary introduces further delays for Europe’s sustainability agenda, recent progress in Omnibus I reflects meaningful steps toward a more proportionate framework. Yet major concerns remain unresolved, as set out in our reaction to the report adopted by the JURI Committee. The extraterritorial reach of both directives risks creating conflicting legal obligations for companies with international footprints. This is not only a matter for US-based companies, but for all businesses with international footprints that may be subject to overlapping or conflicting legal obligations in jurisdictions outside the EU. Read more in the recommendations we’ve set out on what remains to be done if the EU wants to make these frameworks effective and workable for all.