Our early stage researchers Laura Treviño-Lozano and Ezgi Uysal participated on the 28th of November 2022 in Oxford Pogo’s session on ‘Supply chain due diligence and public procurement’ and on the 8th of December 2022 on WorldCC Foundation ‘s compliance and accountability workshop in the framework of the Academic Symposium Advancing Sustainable Contracting. They provided inputs about their research on the ways in which the European Commission’s Proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could be enforced through public procurement under the EU Public Procurement Directive. 

Supply chain due diligence and public procurement

 Oxford Pogo’s session on ‘Supply chain due diligence and public procurement’ was held online. It was chaired by Anne Davies, Professor of Law and Policy, Law Faculty, University of Oxford and involved the presentations of Lena Diesing, OECD Centre for Responsible Business Conduct, Sapiens Network members Laura Treviño-Lozano, University of Greenwich, and Ezgi Uysal, University of Turin and Peter Pawlicki from Electronics Watch. The panelists explored new efforts to protect human rights and reduce negative environmental impacts in the supply chains of goods, works, and services procured by governments. Promises, opportunities, limitations, and challenges were discussed.

 Laura Treviño Lozano and Ezgi Uysal provided inputs about their research on the ways in which the European Commission’s Proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could be enforced through public procurement under the EU Public Procurement Directive. Particularly, they identify the EU’s Proposal has two key limitations: the exclusion of SMEs and the lack of reference to public procurement. Despite of the latter’s exclusion, they analysed three ways in which the due diligence obligations deriving from the Commission’s Proposal could still match the EU procurement system. Notably, these ways are through selection criteria, exclusion criteria and contract performance conditions. Over each one of them they shared the potential limitations and challenges of such enforcement. Watch below the recording of their intervention.

This seminar leads to a particular reflection on the system that has been built in the context of responsible public procurement in the EU. On the one hand, there is an increasing demand and embracement of policy and legal frameworks that can integrate labour and human rights in procurement processes in a mandatory fashion. Notably, these have been non-procurement frameworks. In the policy sphere the EU, for example, endorsed to adopt National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights (NAPs) to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Several countries, such as UK, Denmark, and Finland have adopted NAPs and included specific references to public procurement. In the legal context, mandatory human rights due diligence legislation at domestic level has been adopted in the UK, France, and Netherlands. Recently, these developments at a domestic level have been aimed to be elevated into a EU level with the EU Commission’s Proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. On the other hand, the sustainable aspect of public procurement has remained at a voluntary level in the EU Public Procurement Directive. There is a missing bridge between the increasing mandatory non-procurement frameworks on human rights and voluntary procurement Directives that govern purchasing processes. Further policy and legal legislation should acknowledge this loophole and address it with urgency.

Academic Symposium Advancing Sustainable Contracting

The Academic Symposium Advancing Sustainable Contracting was held online. It involved two-day work. On day two, six workshops facilitated by leading scholars in the field were held on key topics around sustainable public procurement.

The goals of the workshop were to identify existing research that relates to the focus area of each workshop group; generate a research agenda to increase the impact of research on solving real world problems of sustainable contracting and develop a roadmap to set the stage for taking-action to accomplish the research agenda. 

 Our Early Stage Researchers Laura Trevino-Lozano and Ezgi Uysal participated in the fifth workshop on Compliance and Accountability. They provided inputs about compliance to labour standards and accountability of both private and public partners in a contracting procedure to respect human rights. After a six hour discussion on the topics revolving around compliance and accountability and brainstorming amongst the participants several conclusions on new ways forward for future research were delivered.

This workshop leads to reflect on who needs to be accountable. Is it just public buyers or also businesses intervening in the process?. I think both. What needs to be complied? We all know we would like to achieve sustainable development goals, climate change mitigation targets and labour standards for all workers involved in supply chains. Also, we know when: as soon as possible. But little we know yet about how to do it, and particularly how to measure it. Further research is needed on the “how” and one size fits all doesn’t seem like the solution. For example, climate change solutions are different for developed and developing nations. For instance, the former would have to focus their procurement goals in mitigation whereas developing nations in adaptation measures to climate change. Finally, metrics are fundamental for accountability because if it cannot be measured it cannot be controlled. Consequently, accountability loses its purpose because when there is nothing to assess on whether duty-bearers comply, there is no way to hold accountable those who don’t.