Supply Chain Due Diligence
See the chain,
control the risk
Supply chain due diligence is being redesigned by regulation. The companies that meet the change will not have better paperwork — they will be designed, governed and operated differently.
The Imperative
From reputation to regulation
For twenty years, corporate supply chain responsibility ran on a reputational engine all built around protecting the reputation of the buyer. That engine is being replaced by regulatory requirements — an obligation of means, an obligation of results, transparency, and dozens of laws that interoperate with implications for market access, regulatory oversight, product design and marketing, sourcing, disposal and end-of-life.
Transparency and reporting
Due diligence is the engine. Reporting is the dashboard — increasingly informing not only regulators and investors, but customers, B2B partners, stakeholders, tax authorities and more.
A regulatory obligation of means
Built on the UN Guiding Principles, the CSDDD and similar laws require risk-based due diligence built into corporate governance, policy, stakeholder engagement and grievance systems.
A regulatory obligation of results
Forced labour regimes ban products from the market — regardless of how good the paperwork looks or the results of your social compliance audit. Due diligence will not buy an exemption. It helps to avoid the issue in the first place, and it decides whether you can answer within thirty working days.
Forced labour is a crime, not just a trade violation.
Dozens of laws and regulations proliferating globally and variously interoperating in terms of
- Definitions
- Approaches
- Due diligence
- Data & traceability
- Stakeholder engagement
- Enforcement
- Liability
- Risk identification and assessment
- Risk prioritisation
- Reporting and disclosure
- Verification, assurance and evidence
- Market access
With evolving connective tissue
- Regulatory Interoperability
- Digital Connectivity
- Collaborative Ecosystems
- Impact
Our Work
One imperative, three pillars
See the chain, control the risk. We work across the chain — from the corporates that must redesign their duty, to the suppliers that must own it, to the digital systems that make it visible and the listening layer that cuts across all.
Pillar One
Corporate strategy & supply chain engagement
Helping corporates redesign strategy, governance and due diligence for the age of transformation — a duty built into how the business is run.
Explore this pillar →
Pillar Two
Supplier engagement
Helping suppliers and operators run their own governance and systems, independently verified and trusted by many buyers — and enabling SMEs to meet a standard they cannot carry alone.
Explore this pillar →
Pillar Three
Digitisation & collaborative ecosystems
Making the chain visible and enabling convergence, innovation and the creation of collaborative ecosystems — value drawn from data that is shared by design: with the right people, on the right terms.
Explore this pillar →A cross-cutting theme — across all three pillars
The listening layer
Stakeholder engagement is the thread through every due-diligence step — worker and community voice as the channel, and worker organisations at the table for governance, verification and remedy, running through corporate, supplier and digital work alike.
Explore the listening layer →
Five principles
Five principles run through every pillar
- Run by suppliers, verified independently. Suppliers run their own systems. Independent parties verify them, and many buyers rely on one result. Ownership of the system, not of the verdict. Evidence →
- Informed by workers, organised where possible. Anonymous channels to detect what audits miss; trade unions and worker organisations in governance, verification and remedy wherever they exist. Evidence →
- Partnership with consequence, both ways. Capability building backed by consequence: for suppliers that do not remediate, and for buyers whose price, lead times and payment terms cause harm. Evidence →
- Disclosure by design. What is recorded and disclosed, to whom and under what legal protection, decided with counsel before the first data point is collected.
- Exposure first. What the business stands to lose and what workers would be owed, quantified with the time evidence takes to build, set the case. Revenue reward is upside. Evidence →
Insights & Resources
Perspectives on the transforming environment
Briefings on regulation, traceability and the listening layer.
The evidence behind the shift
What the research shows about audits, the alternatives that work, what they cost — and where the evidence is thin.
Read the evidence →
Global supply chains are in a time of transformation
Why due diligence must evolve from the checklist audit to embedded systems — and what the quality revolution teaches us.
Read the article →
A changing regulatory environment
Forced-labour tariffs, import bans, digital product passports and due-diligence laws with teeth — a month that proved the shift.
Read the update →
What does “minimum compliance” with the CSDDD actually look like?
Unpacking what a bare-minimum CSDDD posture really involves — and why it rarely stays minimal.
Read the perspective →