Supply chain due diligence
Supply chain due diligence is an ongoing, risk-based process for identifying, preventing, mitigating, tracking, and communicating adverse impacts connected to an organization’s suppliers and other business relationships. Depending on the governing framework, it can address human rights, labour, environmental, bribery, consumer, disclosure, or governance risks across multiple supply-chain tiers.
In simple terms
Supply chain due diligence turns responsible-business expectations into a repeatable management cycle. The OECD framework describes embedding policies, identifying and assessing impacts, stopping, preventing or mitigating them, tracking implementation and results, communicating, and enabling or supporting remediation where appropriate. The work extends beyond collecting supplier questionnaires: priorities should reflect severity and likelihood, and actions may require changes to purchasing or business relationships. Human rights due diligence is the rights-centered method within this wider landscape. The exact entities, issues, duties, and liability depend on the applicable law or standard, so a generic checklist cannot establish compliance.
Why it matters
Serious impacts can occur far beyond a buyer’s first-tier supplier, including child labour, pollution, unsafe work, and harms that connect to environmental justice or climate justice. Due diligence helps allocate attention where impacts are most significant and tests whether action works. It also creates a more credible basis for responsible sourcing than supplier promises alone.
Example
A minerals buyer maps refiners, traders, and origin sites, screens for severe risks, investigates prioritized cases, and engages suppliers on corrective action. It adjusts purchasing incentives, tracks outcomes, and supports remedy where appropriate. Product origin records help, but they are evidence inputs; the due-diligence process must still interpret risks and act on findings.
How it differs
Human rights due diligence
Supply chain due diligence can address several responsible-business issue areas across supply chains; human rights due diligence specifically centers actual and potential impacts on internationally recognized human rights.