This page follows the two EU laws that now require evidence of effectiveness from companies.
Part 1 · Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
What the Directive requires
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, as amended in 2026, applies from 26 July 2029 to companies with more than 5,000 employees and EUR 1.5 billion turnover. It asks whether due diligence is adequate and effective, and it expects evidence.
Companies must assess the implementation, adequacy and effectiveness of their identification, prevention, mitigation and cessation of adverse impacts, based where appropriate on qualitative and quantitative indicators, at least every five years and after any significant change.
Prevention and corrective action plans must carry qualitative and quantitative indicators for measuring improvement, with timelines. A plan without a baseline cannot show improvement.
Companies that meet obligations through industry or multi-stakeholder initiatives must monitor the effectiveness of those measures. Third-party verification is subject to guidance on its accuracy, effectiveness and integrity.
Part 1 · Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
What we measure under the CSDDD
From the Directive’s obligations we derived 26 effectiveness indicators, article by article, each with a research design. These are the questions companies bring us most, with the indicator each answers and the claim a company can make once the evidence supports it. Those marked in rust reach outcomes for people.
Are our measures preventing harm?
The share of prioritised risks that became actual impacts, in suppliers under our measures against comparable suppliers without them.
Claim it supports: “Suppliers under our prevention measures had [x]% fewer [impact type] incidents than comparable suppliers without them.”
Are suppliers improving against our action plans?
Attainment of the plan’s own improvement indicators within its timelines, as Article 10(2)(a) requires the plan to define.
Claim it supports: “Suppliers met [n] of the [m] improvement indicators in our action plans within the agreed timelines.”
Do our purchasing practices undermine our due diligence?
Whether price, lead time and order volatility are associated with violations at suppliers, from our own transaction data linked to supplier outcomes.
Claim it supports: “Violations at our suppliers show no association with our payment terms, lead times or order volatility.” Or: “After we changed [term], violations at affected suppliers fell by [x]%.”
Do our contractual assurances reach tier 2 and beyond?
Verified conformance among partners bound by assurances, against unbound partners.
Claim it supports: “Verified conformance among partners bound by our assurances is [x] points higher than among unbound partners, down to tier [n].”
Does our risk analysis predict what actually happens?
The share of real incidents that occurred in areas the scoping had flagged, using risk scores at the assessment date.
Claim it supports: “[x]% of the adverse impacts that occurred arose in areas our risk analysis had flagged.”
Do the initiatives we pay into deliver?
Outcomes for members against matched non-members. The Directive requires companies using initiatives to monitor the effectiveness of the measures taken through them.
Claim it supports: “Members of [initiative] achieved [outcome] beyond what comparable non-members achieved.”
Does our verification see what is there?
Concordance between third-party verification findings and what workers report and independent observation shows, at the same sites.
Claim it supports: “Third-party verification findings concur with workers’ own reports at [x]% of sites.”
Did remediation restore the people affected?
The share of affected persons restored to a situation equivalent to before the impact, verified with them.
Claim it supports: “[x]% of affected persons confirm their situation has been restored to what it was before the impact.”
Do affected people know and trust our complaints channel?
Awareness and trust among intended users, and resolution confirmed by complainants.
Claim it supports: “[x]% of intended users know our channel and [y]% trust it; [z]% of complainants confirm their case was resolved.”
Are workers and communities safer and better paid?
Change in the prevalence and severity of the rights violations listed in the Directive’s Annex among workers and communities in prioritised areas: the outcome the Directive was written to achieve.
Claim it supports: “The prevalence of [violation] among workers in our prioritised areas fell from [a]% to [b]%.”
Part 2 · Forced Labour Regulation
What the Regulation requires
Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 prohibits placing products made with forced labour on the EU market and applies from 14 December 2027. It is enforced product by product: a competent authority opens an investigation, and the company has weeks to show what its due diligence found and did.
Authorities can investigate any product suspected of forced labour at any stage of the chain, order it withdrawn from the market, and require its disposal. The company’s due diligence is examined during the investigation, against deadlines it does not set.
Forced labour is defined by the ILO’s eleven indicators, from deception and debt bondage to retention of documents. Audits rarely find it, because people who are coerced do not say so to an auditor. Evidence has to be gathered in ways that protect the person answering.
Forced labour prevalence studies using designs built for fear and stigma: list experiments, randomised response and multiple systems estimation. Investigation preparedness: an evidence file that documents what your due diligence found, did and changed, product by product, before an authority asks.
Our EUFLR readiness and investigation preparedness tool combines a commodity and country risk map, 37 due diligence questions mapped to the eleven ILO indicators and the Regulation’s articles, an automatic gap analysis, and a complaint response planner with a live deadline countdown. It runs in your browser and no data leaves it.
How we work with companies
We answer a defined question with primary data collected where your records end. We do not draft policies, run audits or prepare reports for supervisors. What you receive is evidence and its limits, in indicators a board can read.
A company assessed on commission is assessed with the published methodology we use in our benchmarks. The scoring framework is fixed before scoring begins.
Commissioned research remains scientifically independent: the findings rest on the evidence alone. We state which level of claim a study supports, from description to attribution, and where the evidence stops.
Individual company studies are confidential. Over time, what we learn across them informs anonymised, aggregated research that we publish, as our statutes require.
Your results can be set against the 254 German companies in our reference population, on the same indicators and the same reporting period, using the published benchmark data.
Larger effectiveness studies are delivered together with Mainlevel Consulting, whose impact research practice applies the same designs.
Work with industry
Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act: a logic model analysis of corporate disclosure
All 313 reports from 254 companies, with the Corporate Due Diligence Monitor. With UN Global Compact Network Germany
Farmer group HREDD and grievance mechanism SOPs
Two standard operating procedures for cocoa farmer groups in Ghana, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. For Barry Callebaut
FTSE 100: modern slavery due diligence
60 indicators, raw data published. With CCLA and Sustain Worldwide
Devoir de Vigilance and EU non-financial reporting benchmarks
134 French companies against 42 KPIs; 1,096 companies in three EU countries against 67 KPIs. With iPoint systems
Electronic Labor Rights Template (eLRT)
A free B2B anti-slavery reporting template, recommended by GRI and the Responsible Labor Initiative. For iPoint systems, now part of Assent
Dodd-Frank Section 1502 filing evaluations
Every US-listed issuer’s conflict minerals filing for three reporting years. With Assent and iPoint systems
Companies that file a conflict minerals disclosure with the SEC can order a scorecard of their latest filing, showing their SEC compliance score and OECD conformance rating.
Order a scorecard · €295
Bring us your hardest measurement question
Tell us what your board, your buyers or your supervisor will ask, and we will propose a research design that can answer it, with the data sources, scale and the kind of claim it can support.