#115 Sarah Hechler & Christopher Bayer: How Well Are German Companies Doing HREDD?
episode
Frankly Speaking - A Podcast on Responsible Business
31 min
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
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Why did the UN Global Compact launch a study on the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG)?
Welcome to Frankly Speaking, the podcast on responsible business by Frank Bold, the European public interest law firm. I'm Richard Howitt and after for many years leading debates on responsible business in the European Parliament, I host our discussions about the very latest developments in corporate sustainability, sustainable finance, business and human rights. Today, a new methodology for analysing corporate human rights due diligence legislation produced by the UN Global Compact Network in Germany, and it's provided new insights into the impact of what due diligence can provide for business. Here to discuss this are Sarah Heckler, social project manager at the UN Global Compact Deutschland, and Christopher Beyer, senior researcher on the project and principal investigator at Development International.
Welcome to you both.
Thank you so much for the uh invitation. It's a real pleasure to be here.
Same here, pleasure. Now Sarah, first of all, why did the UN Global Compact undertake this research? And from the point of view of your member companies, what's the relationship between the Compact's ten principles and the uh whole uh operation of due diligence?
Well, under the German Supply Chain Act, companies have to issue an annual report. And it's really a kind of treasure trove of data information that so far hasn't been accessible to any stakeholders, be companies or um governments or civil society. And as I'm sure all of our colleagues working from companies know, you actually invest a lot of time into writing these reports. And at the same time, the information you put out there goes unseen. So for us it was really A project to create a little bit more visibility and especially to help all of our members have more comparison with their peers. So we are a non-profit organization, and by doing this project, we could really ensure that anybody who was interested could take a look at this data because it is freely available.
And perhaps even more valuable than visibility, companies always tell us that they need a comparison to their peers. Is what I'm doing enough? What are others doing? Is my sector moving beyond what I'm doing? So, with this study, we really wanted to help our companies know that what they're doing is enough or where they need to start step up. And in terms of how it compares to the 10 principles, of course, as Union Global Compact, we always try to build on international standards. So while we base most of our work on the 10 principles and the UN Guiding Principles, the RKOSG is very much based on these. standards as well. And I'm really happy to say that in our deeper analysis, which you can access on our website, we actually draw on the UNGPs as a guiding framework to assess what companies have been doing under the LKS G.
So it's not just for German companies. You can click on there and have a look at what they're doing in terms of UNGPs, in terms of CS triple D, and really get a kind of overview of where current implementation of HREDD is at in Germany.
And LKSG, of course, being the German Supply Chain Act for new listeners. Now, Chris, your findings issued in June were subtitled A Logic Model Analysis of Corporate Disclosure. And they cover over 250 companies. So it's both comprehensive and with a lot of academic rigour. I haven't tried to summarize the main findings myself. an introduction over to you. Give us what are the is a flavour of the the principal findings from the report.
Yeah. Well, what first strikes you uh if you look at this landscape of disclosure is uh The form is there, the function is more partial.
What are the most surprising gaps in German companies’ human‑rights due‑diligence measurement?
So when I say form, we're talking about compliance rates that are very high in terms of the required structures to be built uh under the law. So you have um the Menschenrechtbeauftragter, right? The the human rights representative. have the risk analysis processes, you've got a mandatory grievance mechanism set up. And so there's a whole host of things you gotta do. And that is by and large present, uh uh with let's say few exceptions and and of course sometimes uh there's companies that won't just won't disclose everything they're doing.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did the UN Global Compact launch a study on the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG)?
0:01–3:50
2
What are the most surprising gaps in German companies’ human‑rights due‑diligence measurement?
3:50–8:01
3
How does the new typology of 166 indicators reveal which firms are leading on HREDD?
8:01–11:48
4
Why do less than half of firms report violations despite having grievance mechanisms?
11:48–14:59
5
What can companies learn from the automotive case study on effective grievance handling?
14:59–19:17
6
How do the German LkSG, French ‘Devoir de vigilance’, and US Dodd‑Frank compare in scope and impact?
19:17–23:13
7
What practical advice do Sarah and Christopher give for improving responsible purchasing and stakeholder engagement?
23:13–26:50
8
How will the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive build on Germany’s experience?
26:50–31:36
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Frankly Speaking - A Podcast on Responsible Business
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