The guidance illustrates which aspects of SLCP’s Converged Assessment Framework (CAF) can support EU CSRD compliance, and which are out of its scope.
International Trade Centre Head of Trade for Sustainable Development Joe Wozniak says: "Clear and transparent guidance that outlines SLCP's role in supporting European Sustainability Reporting Standards implementation is essential particularly for smaller companies to effectively navigate the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
"To ensure robust disclosures, companies must rely on credible data that furthers transparency of their supply chain impacts on workers - something that adopting SLCP can facilitate as this Guidance demonstrates."
SLCP explains as the world moves towards mandatory corporate sustainability reporting, the CSRD emerges as a pivotal regulatory development for companies both within and outside the EU.
It continues: "The Directive aims to enhance transparency and accountability in addressing human rights risks across global supply chains. SLCP’s CAF, which is designed to align with international labour standards and national labour laws, provides actionable and reliable data to support effective human rights disclosures."
SLCP's CAF is mapped against international labour standards and national labour laws, which allows users to collect data that can be valuable for human rights disclosures.
The guidance details the CAF’s coverage for each disclosure and outlining SLCP’s role and limitations in this context. The Guidance serves not only as a resource for brands seeking solutions in preparing to meet reporting obligations, but also for other stakeholders, including manufacturers, grappling with the complexities of the CSRD.
SLCP's value-add for corporate sustainability reporting
Foundational social assessment: The CAF is a broad social assessment that can support companies when reporting under the CSRD. By capturing data on a wide range of social and labour compliance topics, it comprehensively covers many of the relevant disclosure requirements.
Priority on data quality and integrity: Credible and actionable data, a priority for effective disclosures, is one of SLCP’s four strategic aims in its 2024-2028 strategy. SLCP commits to nurturing, maintaining, and evolving a programme that delivers credible, trustworthy, quality data enabling integration, comparability and insights. SLCP aligns with the data quality principles stated in qualitative characteristics of information ESRS-1 section – relevance, faithful representation, comparability, verifiability, and understandability.
Alignment with international labour standards and national labour laws: SLCP works with key industry stakeholders to map the CAF against international labour standards and national labour laws. This means that the data collected is highly relevant to any emerging policy which aligns with the existing standards. Likewise, SLCP annually maps the Tool questions against key policies and regulations to strive towards further alignment.
