--- title: "Stakeholders" description: "Stakeholders (CSDDD): the employees and the affected individuals or communities a company must consult, as Directive (EU) 2026/470 redefined them." canonical: "https://gencompl.ai/glossary/stakeholders-csddd" language: "en-US" type: "Glossary term" published: "2026-10-13T21:30:48.362Z" modified: "2026-10-13T21:37:06.316Z" --- # Stakeholders The company’s employees, the employees of its subsidiaries and of its business partners, and their trade unions and workers’ representatives, and individuals or communities whose rights or interests are or could be directly affected by the products, services and operations of the company, its subsidiaries and its business partners and the legitimate representatives of those individuals or communities. **What does "Stakeholders" mean under the CSDDD?** Defined in: [CSDDD](https://gencompl.ai/regulations/csddd) (32024L1760) [Home](https://gencompl.ai/) › [Glossary](https://gencompl.ai/glossary) › Stakeholders > The company’s employees, the employees of its subsidiaries and of its business partners, and their trade unions and workers’ representatives, and individuals or communities whose rights or interests are or could be directly affected by the products, services and operations of the company, its subsidiaries and its business partners and the legitimate representatives of those individuals or communities ## Defined in / by - [CSDDD (32024L1760)](https://gencompl.ai/regulations/csddd), Article 3(1), point (n), as replaced by Article 4, point (3)(a), of Directive (EU) 2026/470 Last updated: 13 October 2026. ## Where stakeholders matter Stakeholders are the people a company has to consult. Article 13 requires meaningful engagement with them at set stages of the due diligence process, and the 2024 text also uses the term in Articles 5, 6, 15, 19 and 20. Who counts therefore decides whose views a company must seek, and whose interests it must weigh. The definition has two limbs. The first names employees of the company, of its subsidiaries and of its business partners, together with their trade unions and workers' representatives. The second reaches individuals or communities whose rights or interests are or could be directly affected by the products, services and operations of the company, its subsidiaries and its business partners, and the legitimate representatives of those individuals or communities. The text applies from the date the Member States apply their national measures, 26 July 2029 (Article 37(1), as replaced by Directive (EU) 2026/470). Directive (EU) 2026/470 entered into force on 18 March 2026. We compared the Official Journal text of 2024 with the text that Directive (EU) 2026/470 substituted. Five things changed. Consumers are no longer named. The words individuals, groupings, communities or entities became individuals or communities. The affected rights or interests must now be directly affected. National human rights and environmental institutions are no longer named. And civil society organisations whose purposes include the protection of the environment are no longer named either. Employees of business partners moved into the first limb. > **What we could not establish** > > The definition does not exclude those groups. An organisation can still be a stakeholder as the legitimate representative of affected individuals or communities, but the text no longer says so by name. This entry fixes the term. It does not decide whether the term catches your institution; counsel decides that. ## Questions and answers ### Do civil society organisations still count as stakeholders? Not by name. The 2024 text named them, and the text as replaced does not. One can still fall within the definition if it is a legitimate representative of affected individuals or communities. Whether it does is a question for counsel. ### Are consumers stakeholders? The text as replaced does not name them. A consumer whose rights or interests are directly affected by the company's products can still be one of the individuals the definition describes. ## Sources - [Directive (EU) 2024/1760 on corporate sustainability due diligence](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401760) (EUR-Lex · 13 June 2024) - [Directive (EU) 2026/470, amending Directive (EU) 2024/1760](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202600470) (EUR-Lex · 24 February 2026) ## Related content ### Glossary term - [Industry or multi-stakeholder initiative](https://gencompl.ai/glossary/industry-or-multi-stakeholder-initiative): A combination of voluntary due diligence procedures, tools and mechanisms, developed and overseen by governments, industry associations, interested organisations, including civil society organisations, or groupings or combinations thereof, that companies may participate in in order to support the implementation of due diligence obligations. ### Regulation - [Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)](https://gencompl.ai/regulations/csddd): The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is Directive (EU) 2024/1760. After Omnibus I, Member States must transpose it by 26 July 2028 and apply it from 26 July 2029, to companies with more than 5,000 employees and EUR 1.5 billion in net worldwide turnover. The Netherlands has a draft bill, the Wivo, which names the ACM as supervisor.