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Legal, Risk and Compliance Officers

Connecting sustainability requirements with governance, risk management and the way the organisation actually works.

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Who we serve
Legal, Risk and Compliance Officers

Making sustainability requirements work across the organisation

Legal, risk and compliance teams are dealing with sustainability requirements across multiple jurisdictions while boards, regulators, customers and assurance providers expect clear answers about what applies, who is responsible and how significant issues are governed.

Determining which requirements apply is an essential first step. The harder organisational challenge is implementation. Relevant information may sit across sustainability, procurement, operations and risk. Responsibility for acting often lies with people who do not own the legal requirement, while legal and compliance teams may be asked to explain or defend processes they do not manage day to day.

These functions also have different roles. Legal interprets obligations and considers liability. Compliance focuses on controls, monitoring and evidence. Risk considers exposure to the organisation’s objectives. The action itself may still sit with procurement, operations or another part of the business.

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How do you design due diligence systems that meet legal expectations and work in practice?

Human rights and environmental due diligence sits at the intersection of legal requirements, international standards and corporate governance. At its core is the identification and response to actual and potential adverse impacts on people and the environment.

Some requirements concern the due-diligence process itself, while others focus on reporting, product restrictions or evidence of effective controls. They may overlap, but they differ in purpose, scope and what they ask of an organisation.

For legal, risk and compliance teams, the challenge is to understand how the requirements that apply relate to the organisation’s due-diligence and governance arrangements.

Information and responsibility for action may sit with procurement, operations, human resources or sustainability, while serious findings may require legal assessment, escalation or management oversight.

Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence

Designing due diligence that works in practice

Our approach is grounded in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which provide important international reference points for HREDD legislation and practice.

The focus is on pragmatic and proportionate arrangements that work within day-to-day decision-making: using existing business processes where possible, clarifying how adverse impacts are identified, prioritised and addressed, and building appropriate documentation, monitoring and escalation into established controls.

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Why materiality assessments matter for disclosure

Materiality assessments help determine which sustainability-related information an organisation needs to disclose and at what level of detail.

For multinational organisations, disclosure requirements vary by jurisdiction. Some regimes require a full double materiality assessment, while others centre on financial materiality or introduce impact-related considerations through particular regulations or standards.

A structured basis for disclosure decisions

A well-designed double materiality assessment provides a structured view of sustainability-related impacts, risks and opportunities across the business and value chain.

It creates a common analytical baseline: where the organisation has significant impacts on people and the environment, where sustainability matters may affect its financial position or performance, and how these different perspectives inform disclosure decisions.

For legal, risk and compliance teams, the task is to apply jurisdiction-specific disclosure requirements to a consistent underlying assessment.

They need to be able to explain which topics are in scope, why particular conclusions were reached and how those judgements are applied across jurisdictions, business units and reporting cycles.

Double Materiality Assessment

We support organisations in designing and conducting double materiality assessments that:

provide a robust and defensible basis for disclosure decisions; and
offer a structured view of impact and financial materiality for management and board consideration.

Our work focuses on:

defining a clear scope and methodology that reflect the business model, value chain and reporting context;
structuring proportionate stakeholder engagement, including appropriate consideration of people who may be affected;
applying transparent criteria for assessing impact significance and financial materiality;
documenting sources, assumptions, judgements and decisions; and
establishing appropriate governance, review and assurance controls around the process.

Designed this way, the assessment anchors disclosure decisions in documented judgement and provides useful input into strategy, risk management and oversight. It does not replace due diligence, enterprise risk management or the processes through which material matters are managed.

This strengthens consistency across reporting cycles, clarifies where assurance-level controls apply and gives legal, risk and compliance teams a stronger basis for explaining and supporting the organisation’s conclusions.

Ensuring coherence between materiality, due diligence and risk management

Double materiality assessments, human rights and environmental due diligence and enterprise risk management have different purposes, scopes, definitions, review cycles and governance arrangements. Those differences are necessary, but relevant information still needs to move between them.

Disconnected processes can leave important gaps

An adverse impact identified through due diligence may require action even if it does not represent a material risk to the organisation. It may also create legal, operational, reputational or financial exposure that should be considered through enterprise risk management. In the other direction, emerging business risks or external developments may be relevant to due diligence or a future materiality assessment.

Without clear connections, the same issue may be considered through several processes without the conclusions being connected. Important information may not reach the right function(s), or escalation may happen too late.

Integrated Risk Management

We help organisations establish practical connections between enterprise risk management, double materiality assessments and human rights and environmental due diligence.

This can include:

clarifying the purpose, scope and ownership of each process;
mapping how their definitions and assessment criteria relate;
identifying where findings should be shared or referred between functions;
coordinating information flows and review moments where useful;
defining escalation thresholds and decision points; and
ensuring significant impacts and business risks reach the appropriate governance forums.

Connected in this way, the processes can reinforce one another without losing their distinct purposes. Organisations gain clearer insight into issues affecting people and the environment and those affecting the organisation, while reducing duplication and strengthening oversight.

Legal, Risk and Compliance Officers

Making sustainability requirements work across the organisation

Connected insights

How do you design due diligence systems that meet legal expectations and work in practice?

Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence

Your time is valuable

Why materiality assessments matter for disclosure

A structured basis for disclosure decisions

Double Materiality Assessment

Ensuring coherence between materiality, due diligence and risk management

Integrated Risk Management

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