FREE WEBINAR: 

Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence: Key Challenges Facing Companies

Wednesday, 27 April 2022

12.30-13.30pm BST (London)

Context

Business and human rights is rapidly shifting from voluntary frameworks, such as the UN Guiding Principles, ILO Convention and OECD Guidelines, to mandatory ones. Last year, mandatory Human Rights Environmental Due Diligence (mHREDD) laws were passed in Germany and Norway, and similar laws are under consideration in the Netherlands and Finland. The corporate Duty de Vigilance legislation in France was introduced in 2017. 

The European Union (‘EU’) has this year published its Proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence. The proposal aims to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour and accountability throughout global value chains. The proposal will apply to both EU companies and non-EU companies that are large, limited liability companies. So British companies doing business in the EU are in-scope.

In the UK, the pressure is mounting too. More than 30 British companies, investors and business associations have called on the U.K. government to introduce a mHREDD law. And, of course, the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) requires in-scope organisations to publish an annual statement setting out the steps they take to prevent modern slavery in their business and their supply chains. This is a requirement under section 54 (Transparency in Supply Chains) of the Act.

Speakers’ insights 

Colleen Theron, CEO Ardea International, will moderate and provide a legal perspective on the global existing and forthcoming mHRDD legislation as well as human rights due diligence best practice approaches.

Surinder Sond, Head of ESG at Halfords, will outline how the mHRDD legislation impacts the business and how they are developing a human rights due diligence framework to manage their risks and deliver a beyond compliance response. 

Rohini Kale is an Established Ethical Trade Partner at ASOS. Rohini manages the South Asia supply chain and leads the work on Supply Chain Transparency, Modern Slavery and Human Rights Due Diligence.

Speakers’ biogs

Colleen Theron, CEO Ardea International

Colleen is a tri qualified lawyer with over 25 years of legal and commercial experience of working with business, organisations and NGOs across sectors on both a strategic and operational level. She provides advisory services, training and online resources to both directors and employees on human rights, modern slavery and sustainability issues. Colleen has an LLM (with distinction) in Environmental Law from the University of Aberdeen. She sits on the advisory board for LexisPSL Environment and was nominated as one of the Top 100 Corporate Modern Slavery influencers in the UK in 2018.

Surinder Sond, Head of ESG at Halfords

Surinder is an experienced sustainability professional with a demonstrated history of working in the consumer goods industry. She is a strong economics professional, skilled in sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, environmental strategy development, human rights, risk management, stakeholder engagement and project management.

The webinar will last 60 minutes and includes a question and answer session. At the point of registration you will have the opportunity to submit questions you would like to our speakers to respond to on the live webinar.

This webinar is paired with Ardea International’s Developing an environmental and human rights due diligence framework workshop. REGISTER.

You may also be interested in our Business and human rights risk management toolkit.