Academics call on the European Union to act with more integrity

On September 9, 2025, the Copenhagen Declaration was released. The document is a call for more evidence-based policy-making in relation to sustainability in the EU. In an interview, Assistant Professor Judith Stroehle, a co-author of the declaration, clarifies what the document is, how it came to be and what it seeks to accomplish.

Professor Stroehle, you wrote the Copenhagen Declaration with 6 other European academics. What drove you to draft this document?
At the Academy of Management meeting in Copenhagen, many of us had intense discussions about how the European Commission currently approaches the regulatory process concerning business sustainability and felt that the EU is not taking a balanced, evidence-based approach to business sustainability regulation. Essentially, they are ignoring a huge body of academic evidence. We wanted to draw attention to this issue, particularly in the context of the Omnibus procedure, and signal that the scientific community can and should play a more important role in European policymaking.

What is the EU Omnibus procedure and how does it affect European corporate sustainability?
The EU’s Omnibus package from February 2025 aims to reduce reporting burdens on companies and increase European competitiveness, by simplifying two core policy pieces of the EU Green Deal: The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). Proposed changes target exemptions for smaller firms, reducing the due diligence scopes in supply chains, and simplifying reporting requirements. 

While a review of all these points was indeed important – as early proposals were rightfully criticized as too complex and overburdensome –, the EU has taken a «slash and burn» approach to simplifying these regulations, rather than doing a cost-benefit-analysis and thus an informed review. Ultimately, the question needs to be: What do we need sustainability transparency for, and which level of reporting will be conducive in getting us there? 

With the Omnibus, the EU has flipped-flopped from saying «all the information» (in the original drafts) to saying «hardly any information» (in the Omnibus) in two seconds, without making an evidence-based assessment of how information truly feeds into the market. This is not only very frustrating and unsettling to companies that have already started the reporting process, but also counterproductive to the pursuit of competitiveness and sustainability as integrated goals.

What does the Copenhagen Declaration call for?
It demonstrates our concerns for the future of sustainability policy in Europe. In the declaration, we urge European policymakers to pursue the simplification of regulations – which we in principle agree with – in an evidence-based fashion, and without compromising the integrity and ambition of the sustainable development agenda in Europe.

In your view, is evidence-based policymaking currently taking place?
In simple terms, no. With the recent EU Omnibus process, through which EU politicians basically reacted to geopolitical and global market shifts, the EU went quickly into overcompensation mode. In no time at all, the Commission thus tried to retract legislation that it had drafted over the better part of a decade. While, again, certain reflection was certainly welcome – it did so without any due process or meaningful stakeholder and expert involvement. The outcomes thus seem erratic, uniformed and extreme; even to the biggest supporters of simplification.

What effect are you hoping the Copenhagen Declarations will have?
While we are supportive of efforts to streamline the European legislation, we ultimately want to caution that simplification must be grounded in scientific evidence, weigh both costs and benefits, and provide regulatory consistency. 

Since the election of Donald Trump, there has been an open reluctance by the American government to embrace any policy that has to do with sustainability. How is this affecting European companies?

Most large and internationally active European companies already have solid sustainability strategies in place and report on them comprehensively. They may not speak as loudly about it in the US anymore (what is recently also known as «greenhushing»), but I certainly do not see them retracting their efforts. On the contrary, many companies are frustrated with the current European process because they have been investing in sustainability for many years, and they deeply believe in the benefits of it. 

Smaller and medium-sized companies in Europe are still on their way to learn about how to address sustainability strategically. They would need the support of the EU to help them guide these efforts in a balanced way, precisely because of the counteracting pressures such as the current US government. I fear that the Omnibus process is making it only more confusing and complicated for them.

How can the EU government align closer with climate science?
To pursue the Green Deal and safeguard competitiveness, the EU fundamentally needs clarity on its theory of change and properly analyse how its simplification efforts contribute to this. Scientists can help with this. But it requires the drafting of a due process and the inclusion of experts when simplifying sustainability policy to allow for climate and sustainability science to be able to inform this debate. In other words, evidence and expertise exist in abundance, but the channels of communication are missing.

In the declaration, it is mentioned that sustainability should not be seen as a regulatory burden but as a strategic advantage for Europe. How can or should Europe use this as an advantage?
The recent EU Omnibus process seems to have shifted the perception of sustainability from being an opportunity for European companies and the European market to seeing it solely as a cost and burden. Consequently, the mindset of Omnibus has become «the less the better». This is not only detrimental, but also factually wrong. We have much academic evidence that speaks to the positive relationship between sustainability, resilience and performance. The question thus needs to be how we can make the best of the benefits in the long run while minimizing or at least absorbing the costs in the short-term. This is the typical cost-benefit-thinking that is currently missing. 

How does it affect Switzerland? Germany? The UK?
Germany as an EU country is directly affected by the Omnibus. But organizations from Switzerland and the UK, too, cannot ignore these debates. Be it through supply chains, business partnerships or direct sales – most companies in these two countries are affected by the European legislative process in one or the other way.

Interested scholars (faculty) are encouraged to sign the Copenhagen Declaration. 

Prof. Dr. Judith Stroehle is Assistant Professor of Sustainability Governance at the University of St.Gallen.