Sustainable Supply Chains

Ensuring your suppliers satisfy ESG standards

Supply chains pose unique and rapidly evolving risks and challenges for corporates - in addition to the prospect of reputational damage, a changing legislative landscape in the UK and abroad means that civil, criminal or regulatory liabilities may also be triggered.

The UK Government has committed to extending corporate criminal liability to organisations that fail to prevent fraud by persons acting on their behalf domestically and overseas, which includes one's suppliers. UK corporates must already be carrying out adequate procedures to demonstrate their commitment to prevent bribery and tax evasion in their supply chains. In the EU, legislation is shifting to impose further mandatory due diligence and reporting requirements on corporates in relation to human rights abuses and environmental harms in their supply chains. These increasingly onerous responsibilities imposed by new EU Directives will be felt by UK organisations with existing contractual relationships in the EU.

Managing the risks that arise from a shifting legislative landscape coupled with increasing stakeholder demands for transparent and ethical supply chains requires cutting edge advice from specialists across disciplines.

How can we support?

We support and guide you on the formation and management of your supplier relationships to help meet your legal responsibilities and ESG goals.

We kick off by carrying out an assessment of your organisation's ESG risks and potential supply chain liabilities. We review your corporate strategies, operational practices, and implementation mechanisms, and assess these in line with legal and regulatory obligations as well as best practice standards.

We then move onto support you to assess potential suppliers, onboard new suppliers and manage each the performance of your suppliers:

1. Supplier assessment: we help you to establish a selection criteria, processes and due diligence procedures to efficiently review each new supplier based on legal standards and their ESG credentials.
2. Supplier onboarding: we assist you with onboarding new suppliers at the contract negotiation and drafting stage to establish supplier responsibilities, set in place key ESG clauses and articulate the consequences of breaching these standards.
3. Supplier management: we help you monitor and audit your suppliers regularly to ensure they are meeting their contractual responsibilities and relevant ESG standards and advise you on contingency planning and terminating contracts in the case of a breach.

We advise on various aspects of accountability in your supply chain, helping you build stronger trust and relationships with your suppliers, mitigate risk and add value.

Why us?

Purpose

Working with Mishcon Purpose, our specialist sustainability business, we offer strategic advice alongside our legal opinion to ensure your business is reaping the commercial gains and staying ahead of the curve on ESG matters.

Experience

Our lawyers have unrivalled expertise in numerous sectors and jurisdictions. We work collaboratively across departments to deliver relevant and holistic advice on your supply chains.

Practical

We are experts in the law and in business and with access to our group companies, such as MDRx, we bring a commercial, practical and pragmatic approach.

Find out more

You can access our full range of legal support, which draws on an exceptionally diverse range of knowledge and skills throughout the MDR Group to ensure our advice is bespoke to your business and sector. 

To find out more, please contact Matthew Ewens, Chris Gribbin or Polly Green.