Short food supply chains through a business and human rights lens

In May 2024, the EU adopted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive³. The directive requires companies to carry out a human rights and environmental due diligence process to prevent, mitigate and address their own potential or actual adverse human rights and environmental impacts, as well as those of their subsidiaries and those arising in their global chains of activities. The directive is the latest development in BHR, following the adoption in 2011 by the United Nations Human Rights Council of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These guiding principles are non-binding but have inspired government and company policies around the world to move towards more corporate accountability. This BHR approach prioritizes corporate accountability and is shaped by international human rights law, thus going beyond voluntary corporate social responsibility.

The directive introduces ‘responsible business conduct’ as an additional component of sustainability. While focusing on very large companies (with more than 1,000 employees and a minimum annual turnover of €450 million), the directive emphasizes that all businesses have the responsibility to respect human rights, which are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. Therefore, smaller companies along the value chain are also encouraged to have responsible conduct, in line with human rights — including economic and social rights — and environmental international standards, and more broadly with the BHR approach.