Berlin – Brot für die Welt, BUND, IG Metall, and MISEREOR are calling for greater political efforts to ensure the global enforcement of human rights and decent working conditions, as well as the protection of the environment and climate. A joint statement adopted today reads: “Corporate due diligence obligations must not be left to the goodwill of business leaders; they must be enshrined in legally binding legislation.”
In the view of the four organizations, the draft of the so-called EU Supply Chain Act (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) must be urgently revised during the ongoing legislative process in order to effectively eliminate human rights violations and environmental destruction from companies’ value chains. Furthermore, the signatories expect the German federal government to provide clear and active support for negotiations on an international agreement on business and human rights within the framework of the UN Human Rights Council.
They call on German industrial companies and policymakers to recognize and comply with human rights and labor standards, as well as environmental and climate protection, in all activities related to the extraction of raw materials. Industry and policymakers must make compliance with these standards mandatory for suppliers and customers and provide them with the best possible support in implementing them. Certification systems should not, however, replace comprehensive due diligence in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. As announced in the coalition agreement, the federal government must urgently establish better regulations for a sustainable circular economy in order to effectively reduce demand for primary raw materials.
Jörg Hofmann, President of IG Metall: “Employersmust take responsibility for ensuring compliance with labor and human rights in their value chains—with tangible consequences for violations. Policymakers must establish clear legal regulations to this end—including at the EU and UN levels. Human rights take precedence over profit maximization. There can be no two ways about it.”
Pirmin Spiegel, Executive Director of Misereor: “The suspension of reporting requirements under the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act proposed by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck would send the wrong signal, especially in light of the negotiations on the EU Supply Chain Act. Public transparency is not an excessive bureaucratic burden on companies, but is indispensable for the protection of human rights and the environment. Especially in times of crisis, the global protection of human rights is particularly imperative.”
Antje von Broock, BUND Executive Director:“The federal government must ensure that companies disclose and reduce the climate impacts of their value chains. Simply advocating that companies should submit climate plans in the future under the EU Supply Chain Act is not enough. We need a legal obligation to implement these measures, which the government still rejects. But only with this legal obligation can greenwashing finally be put to an end.”
Dagmar Pruin, President of Brot für die Welt, regarding the “Critical Raw Materials Act”: “The law on critical raw materials currently under discussion in the EU focuses solely on the EU’s economic interests and thus carries the risk that countries in the Global South will continue to be reduced to the role of raw material suppliers. This hinders their own ecological transformation. The German government must advocate for a globally just raw materials policy during the trilogue negotiations.”
The joint statement will be presented today in Berlin as part of the conference “Human Rights and Environmental Protection in Global Value Chains and Raw Material Extraction.” There, top representatives from the four organizations will discuss the issue with representatives from politics and business, as well as guests from countries in the Global South. Brot für die Welt, BUND, IG Metall, and MISEREOR have been actively involved for years in the “Supply Chain Act Initiative,” a civil society alliance of more than 140 organizations working to enforce human rights and environmental standards worldwide.
The full joint statement can be found here.
