How we support you
Cost-effective due diligence that works in your organisation
Our work brings together sustainability, procurement, legal, risk and operational teams to make human rights and environmental due diligence work in day-to-day decisions. The emphasis depends on what is already in place, where the gaps are and which impacts require attention. The areas below are common parts of our work, rather than a fixed sequence.
1
Setting scope and boundaries
One of the first practical questions is how far due diligence should reach across an organisation’s own operations and value chains, and how deeply each area needs to be examined.
There may also be a regulatory or contractual scope to consider. This can determine which entities, activities or business relationships are formally covered. It does not necessarily identify where the organisation’s most significant adverse impacts are found, so the legal and impact-based perspectives both need attention.
Trying to assess everything to the same level creates a process that is difficult and expensive to maintain. It can also divert attention from the most significant actual and potential impacts.
We help organisations determine:
- which regulatory and contractual requirements define the formal scope;
- which parts of their operations and value chains need closer examination;
- where more information or stakeholder input is required;
how to balance breadth and depth; - where further work is unlikely to improve the decision.
The aim is a scope that meets the relevant requirements, reflects the organisation’s impacts and involvement, and is realistic to manage and explain.
2
Making responsibilities and decisions work
Responsibilities for due diligence are usually spread across sustainability, procurement, legal, risk, compliance and operational teams.
The difficulty lies in the connections between them: who holds the information, who is expected to act and who has the authority to decide.
We help organisations clarify:
- the roles of different functions;
- where responsibilities meet or overlap;
- which decisions sit at which level;
- when a significant issue needs management or board attention.
This may require revisiting policies, codes of conduct and procedures so that they reflect the organisation’s due diligence priorities and are clear enough for teams to use.
3
Identifying and prioritising adverse impacts
HREDD focuses on actual and potential adverse impacts on people and the environment. Identifying them requires more than reviewing internal policies, audit results or supplier data.
Relevant evidence may also come from workers, affected communities, grievances, incidents and external sources.
We help organisations:
- bring together information held across the business;
- identify where important information is missing;
- assess the severity of actual and potential impacts and, for potential impacts, their likelihood;
- determine which impacts require the most urgent attention;
- make assessments usable by the people responsible for acting on them.
This gives management a clear basis for deciding where attention and action are needed first, rather than a long list of impacts without meaningful priorities.
4
Translating priorities into action
Due diligence does not end when an impact has been identified and recorded.
The organisation still needs to decide what it can do, what it should do and who needs to be involved.
Depending on the issue and the organisation’s relationship to it, action may include:
- changes to operations, products or business practices;
- sourcing and contracting decisions;
- supplier engagement and improvement plans;
- stronger controls or monitoring;
- using or increasing leverage;
- remediation, escalation or, where necessary, responsible disengagement.
This is where due diligence connects with responsible sourcing and supplier engagement. Due diligence establishes the impact-based priorities; sourcing and supplier engagement provide some of the ways to act on them.
5
Maintaining oversight
Senior management and boards do not need every detail, but they do need enough information to understand significant impacts, the decisions being made and whether the response is working.
We help organisations decide:
- what information needs to be tracked;
- whether actions are producing the intended result;
- when progress is insufficient;
- which matters require escalation;
- what needs to be communicated internally or externally.
The reporting and escalation arrangements should fit the organisation and the seriousness of the issues. More information does not necessarily lead to better oversight.
Information from a functioning HREDD process may also inform enterprise risk management and impact materiality. The processes remain distinct, but relevant findings should not stay isolated from the wider decisions they can inform.
6
Deciding when collaboration is needed
Some adverse impacts cannot be addressed effectively by one company. The issue may be systemic, shared across an industry or rooted in a local context where the organisation has limited knowledge, access or leverage.
Collaboration may help where it gives companies greater leverage, reduces unnecessary duplication or brings in knowledge and perspectives they do not have themselves. It can also add another layer of process without improving the response.
We help organisations decide whether collaboration is appropriate, what it needs to achieve and what role the organisation can realistically play. This may involve pre-competitive collaboration or participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives.
