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.

2024 年 5 月，欧盟通过了《企业可持续发展尽职调查指令³》。该指令要求公司执行人权和环境尽职调查流程，以预防、减轻和解决自身潜在或实际的不利人权和环境影响，以及对其子公司及其全球活动链产生的不利影响。该指令是 BHR 继 2011 年联合国人权理事会通过《联合国工商业与人权指导原则》之后的最新发展。这些指导原则不具有约束力，但激发了世界各地的政府和公司政策，以加强企业问责制。这种 BHR 方法优先考虑企业问责制，并受到国际人权法的影响，因此超越了自愿的企业社会责任。

该指令引入了“负责任的商业行为”作为可持续发展的附加组成部分。该指令侧重于非常大的公司（拥有 1,000 多名员工，最低年营业额为 4.5 亿欧元），同时强调所有企业都有责任尊重人权，这些人权是普遍的、不可分割的、相互依存和相互关联的。因此，也鼓励价值链上的小公司采取负责任的行为，符合人权（包括经济和社会权利）和环境国际标准，更广泛地采用 BHR 方法。