The Editor's Post: A complicated simplification

In February this year, the European Commission unveiled a plan, the so-called ‘Sustainability Omnibus’, which it said would simplify the bloc’s flagship corporate sustainability laws and make the EU more competitive to attract business and investment.

Back then, campaigners said the EU parliament “must not agree” to the Commission's proposals, which they argued would water down the rules and open the door to “rampant greenwashing”. Now, eight months later, the EU parliament hasn’t just agreed with the Commission: it presented a plan to go even further.

Following weeks of negotiations between the different political forces in parliament, the parliamentary committee in charge of reviewing the laws eventually passed a proposal that would reduce further the number of businesses covered by the rules; remove some legal provisions to hold companies accountable for the harm they create; and limit how much they need to investigate their supply chains – read our story for a step-by-step breakdown of what happened and what it means.

The results of the committee vote are telling: 17 in favour, six against, two abstentions. The MEP who led the negotiations said the vote reflected a “big support for simplification”. Proponents of corporate accountability would say that’s a clear vote against sustainability. 

That’s yet another departure from the ambitious social and environmental initiatives adopted by the bloc during the early 2020s – arguably a golden age of European sustainability policymaking – including the withdrawal of a key anti-greenwashing law and the scrapping of the social economy unit from a key department. 

There are clear causes for it: in last year’s EU parliament elections, the assembly shifted to the right, with anti-sustainability politicians gaining more clout and providing a more attentive ear to corporate lobbies. The world has also become a ruthless place where it’s harder to compete for business and investment, and the EU has decided that deregulation is the way forward.

So, back to the campaigners calling on the parliament to reject the Omnibus proposal in February: was it wishful thinking? Like our European expert Toby Gazeley said in his latest column: the social impact community needs to face political reality, and find a new narrative that will speak to that. The old arguments no longer work.

SOC, SOP, SIB… what?

I managed the first half of my editorial without using any technical acronyms, because at Pioneers Post we strive to make our articles understandable to the non-experts and cut the jargon as much as possible. That’s the main purpose of our Impact 101 explainers, and the topic of the latest one is both current and important.

In recent months, you may have read about the UK government’s half-a-billion pound commitment to a social outcomes fund, which will establish social outcomes partnerships and pay for social outcomes contracts (also called social impact bonds). But what are those things? In our latest explainer, top experts go through what social outcomes partnerships are, how they work, and why they matter. I encourage you to read it – it clarifies quite a few things even for those who already know about the topic – and share it: the better informed people are, the better the solutions we’ll find. 

This week's top stories:

UK social investors can make Westminster’s money go further, argues Big Issue Invest’s new boss

What are social outcomes partnerships?

Connecting isolated enterprises to unlock development: Rural Social Enterprise Gathering 2025

The Impact World this Week: 17 October 2025

Top image: the EU Parliament's building in Brussels in May 2025 © European Union 2025 - Source : EP