Take responsibility

Establishing a robust grievance mechanism is important to identify negative impacts effectively. This grievance mechanism is always accessible to internal and external stakeholders. A robust complaints mechanism:

• Is known to all employees of your company and those of your suppliers.
• Is easily accessible to all employees.
• Handles information confidentially.
• Is trusted by all employees.
• Protects whistle-blowers.
• Registers all complaints and how they have been handled.

It is essential to educate employees about the grievance mechanism regularly. During these trainings, it is good to emphasise that the mechanism contributes to safeguarding human and labour rights and environmental protection.

Note! A company itself can establish a grievance mechanism, or (small) companies can join collective grievance mechanisms, such as through collective labour agreements. Therefore, seeing if there is such a collective presence in your sector with a robust grievance mechanism is important.

Remedial measures are necessary to address or resolve negative impacts in the chain. Providing remedial measures is a separate process and contributes to and supports due diligence.

The extent to which your company needs to take action depends on the extent to which your company is involved. As you learned in module 1, a company can cause a negative impact on itself, contribute to it, or be directly linked to it. For example:

• Causing: for example, a flower grower with their nursery in Africa where labour rights are violated.
• Contributing to: for example, a clothing brand that adjusts orders at the last minute, causing employees to work overtime.
• Being directly linked to: for example, a jeweller purchasing gold through many intermediaries from a mine where child labour has been discovered.

In the event that your company causes or contributes to negative impacts, you will offer restitution. If you are linked to the damage, you can assist in the recovery.

Remedial measures can take many forms. Think, for example, of apologies, recognition of union representatives, financial compensation, dismissal of responsible employees, measures to prevent adverse impacts in the future, etc. The form of remedy needed to address or resolve damage depends on the nature and extent of the negative consequence. It is, therefore, essential to map out the most suitable process for remedy.

This can be identified by looking at:

Legislation and regulations

In some cases, (international) legislation and regulations prescribe which restorative measures should be taken.

Case studies

If there is no legislation or regulation to provide remedies, it is helpful to see how other companies in similar situations have provided remedies.

Stakeholder input

Especially for human rights violations, it is essential to involve stakeholders in remedies. The victims' perspective must be well considered in the decision on remedies.

In the event that the company did not cause or contribute to the damage itself, it may still be directly linked to it. The company can choose to cooperate in the restoration process by engaging in discussions with business partners responsible for the damage or by providing information about the situation to stakeholders. In this way, the company does not directly address or resolve the damage itself but contributes to the process.