Companies in France can be held accountable for human rights abuses and environmental degradation along their global supply chain. This is due to the 2017 French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law, that places the onus on large companies to identify and prevent risks in their business activities.
This article provides a summary of what companies need to know about the law.

Included are all business activities of the company itself, but also activities of their suppliers and subcontractors, with whom they have an established commercial relationship. Affected are large companies established in France, which employ at least 5000 employees within the head office and subsidies. However, the impact of the law is global, as subsidies, subcontractors and suppliers are also in the duty to fulfill the requirements.

All companies in scope of the law are obliged to establish, publish and implement a vigilance plan on an annual basis including:

1. Appropriate measures to identify, prevent and mitigate risks to human rights and the environment.
2. Means to evaluate the situations of supply chains, subsidiaries or subcontractors in relation to risk mapping.
3. A data collection technique for actual and potential risks, and planned actions to mitigate risks and prevent violations.
4. Monitoring to assess the efficiency of conducted measures. In brief, the law requires companies to implement publicly-available vigilance plans for which they can be held accountable. The law should enhance the CSR programs of companies and bring justice to victims along the supply chain. It further illustrates the growing trend of legally anchoring corporate responsibility duties along the entire supply chain.

Technological solutions can play a key role in helping businesses fulfill compliance requirements and improve their transparency and accountability. With the sustainabill cloud platform companies can gain multi-tier visibility, map their supply chain and screen potential risks for each facility.
With regards to the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law, sustainabill can enable companies to develop the vigilance plan by providing the necessary information about the entire supply chain network. The sustainabill platform is perfectly suited to collect detailed information on each stakeholder in the supply chain, aggregate it to a compelling supply chain visualization and perform risk screenings as required by the law.

Read the law here: