The EU needs to adopt a mandatory due diligence approach to supply chain management to ensure that it stops importing human rights violations, argue Anna Cavazzini and Heidi Hautala...

Today the Commission is publishing a study that looks into the various options for sustainable supply chain management. One option in that study clearly sticks out: a mandatory due diligence approach...

The study confirms that voluntary measures have not led to necessary behavioural change...

Another study launched last week, The State of Corporate Sustainability Reporting in the EU, similarly confirmed that 22.2% of companies report on due diligence processes and only 6.9% provide remedy for harmed people.

[I]ntroducing a mandatory approach [...] is just a logical step in a series of policy discussions and decisions made in recent years...

The European Parliament is a long time promoter of mandatory due diligence... For the Greens, but also many other groups, mandatory due diligence was one of the main points in the hearings for the new Commission.

There are initiatives happening in several committees that push for such legislation, coordinated by the working group on responsible business conduct...

The German government will bring sustainable supply chains on the agenda of their Council presidency...

A lot of business initiatives support the idea as well...