Background

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Global supply chains are today shaped by compliance frameworks that were largely conceptualised in and for the Global North. These frameworks emerged in response to legitimate concerns around labour rights, environmental sustainability, and corporate accountability. A key shortcoming of these systems is their one-size-fits-all approach — the application of uniform audit protocols, indicators, and contractual conditions across vastly different geographies, economies, and regulatory landscapes. This uniformity ignores the significant regional complexities that affect both the feasibility and the relevance of compliance requirements. Their design and enforcement often reflect the priorities, market pressures, and risk appetites of buyers and financiers in the Global North. The realities of suppliers, workers, and communities in the Global South are considered as objects of change within these priorities of the Global North.

 

Forced labour and occupational safety and health (OSH) are deeply interconnected: hazardous or unsafe work environments often create the very vulnerabilities that leave workers at risk of coercion, debt bondage, and other forms of exploitation. What could be the learning for the Corporate sustainability due diligence regime in these contexts? Is there a space to decolonise compliance under the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) so that it drives equitable change? If there a possibility that the current compliance industry would help funds flow from the Global North to the Global South? If yes, what could be the solutions? We will explore approaches that move from punitive, buyer-centric enforcement to enabling, co-created solutions. Discussions will focus on integrating adaptation and resilience alongside mitigation, designing culturally relevant and economically feasible standards with workers and local stakeholders, and ensuring Global North brands share costs and responsibility through fair financing, capacity building, and equitable data governance. Field insights from Sri Lanka, and Malaysia will ground the discussion in lived experience.

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Key Objectives

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• Assess the how due diligence mechanisms can integrate the learnings from various context and design culturally relevant and economically feasible standards with workers and local stakeholders.

• Explore compliance approaches that support co-creation of solutions for addressing the issues faced by the Global South.

• Draw actionable lessons from field experiences in Sri Lanka and Malaysia to inform policy and practice under the CSDDD and similar corporate due diligence regimes.

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Guiding Questions

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• What lessons can the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence regime draw from the intersection of forced labour and occupational safety and health risks in Global South supply chains?

• How can the EU CSDDD be adapted or interpreted to “decolonise” compliance — ensuring that it enables equitable, context-specific change rather than imposing uniform, buyer-centric requirements?

• Can the existing compliance industry be leveraged to channel financing and resources from the Global North to the Global South in a way that strengthens supplier capacity and worker protection?

• If so, what practical mechanisms — such as fair cost-sharing, capacity-building partnerships, or locally governed data systems — could ensure these funds are deployed effectively and equitably?

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Format

• Interactive Lecture Presentation Format with Significant Opportunities for Q and A

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Session Partners