UK Businesses Call for UK Due Diligence Law

36 leading businesses and investors, including Fashion Roundtable, have called on the UK Government to introduce a new legal requirement for companies and investors to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence.

Excerpt:

“To realise this ambition, we call on the government to introduce a new legal requirement for companies and investors to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence. Such a requirement to prevent abuse of human rights and environmental harm in global operations and value chains would deliver on the government's commitments to the levelling up agenda and to the transition to a net zero economy, as well as establishing Global Britain as a leader in setting standards for renewed and sustainable prosperity worldwide.

The COVID-19 crisis is demonstrating the fragility of global supply chains, and the vulnerabilities this creates and exacerbates for workers, communities, indigenous peoples and businesses around the world. There is a real risk that recent progress will be reversed. For example, the number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years – with millions more at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF’s Child Labour Global Estimates 2020.

As we recover and rebuild, we recognise the need for new binding standards which benefit all and promote sustainability. Mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence is key to ensure that efforts by companies that respect people and the planet, both during and after the COVID-19 recovery, are not undercut by the lack of a uniform standard of conduct applying to all business actors.”

To read the letter in full, click the link below.