Duty of vigilance: it's time to keep an eye on things!

The Parliament has approved by 374 votes to 235 with 19 abstentions the new"Duty of Vigilance" directive, agreed with the Council, which requires companies and their upstream and downstream partners to prevent, stop or mitigate their negative impact on human rights and the environment, including at the sourcing, production and distribution levels. This includes slavery, child labor, labor exploitation, the erosion of biodiversity, pollution or the destruction of natural heritage.

Companies must draw up and publish a due diligence plan to prevent environmental, human rights and corruption risks in their own activities, as well as those of their subsidiaries, subcontractors and cascading suppliers.

These provisions require companies to keep a constant watch on their subcontractors, as the reputational risk is very high and subject to sanctions: Member States will have to provide companies with detailed online information on their duty of care obligations via practical portals containing the Commission's guidelines. They will also have to set up or designate a supervisory authority responsible for investigating and imposing sanctions on companies that fail to meet their obligations. This will include denouncing such companies and imposing fines of up to 5% of their worldwide net sales.

This text was drawn up in response to various scandals such as the April 2013 disaster in Bangladesh where a building - the Rana Plaza - collapsed, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 employees, or the affair of forced labor on World Cup construction sites in Qatar. These events have raised Europe's awareness of the working conditions of subcontractors to major European industrial groups.

Parliament has given the final green light to new rules requiring companies to mitigate their social and environmental impact.

CIKISI provides its customers with operational solutions for monitoring companies in their local environment. Monitoring suppliers and partners. Be alerted immediately when an article is relayed in the press or relates an event involving a social or climate scandal involving one of your suppliers, customers, yourself or any other player in the target market.

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