Study Of Environmental Due Diligence Rules In LkSG

In recent years,multinational corporations and other businesses have been encouraged to take responsibility for their supply chains on a voluntary basis.In the20 th century,the OECD,the UN Human Rights Council and other international organizations issued a number of instruments to promote "responsible business behavior",providing industrial and commercial enterprises to carry out due diligence on the supply chain in human rights,environment,labor and other aspects,and take measures to prevent,terminate and remedy the adverse impact of related risks,and practice corporate social responsibility.The OECD Guidelines for Transnational Enterprises adopted in 1976 proposed that transnational corporations should abide by the policies and laws of host countries and assume social responsibilities such as protecting human rights and protecting the environment on this basis,which laid the beginning of international practice of corporate social responsibility.The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,adopted in 2011,establish a framework for the protection of human rights in business that is centred on three pillars: the obligation of States to protect human rights,the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights,and access to effective remedies for victims.Many countries then began to issue "national action plans" on corporate social responsibility.However,judging from the current governance status quo,the "soft law" mechanism that relies on voluntary implementation by enterprises is far from enough.Many countries are beginning to call for binding international treaties to regulate the behavior of multinational corporations and other business enterprises,and human rights and the environment are two of the most needed and effective areas of corporate social responsibility.For this reason,in recent years,EU member States have successively implemented "Supply Chain Law",which requires domestic companies to fulfill their due diligence obligations to identify,prevent,terminate and remedy human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains through domestic legislation.At the EU level,the corporate due diligence Directive,which requires companies to disclose non-financial information and identify risks in specific sectors such as mining associated with conflict zones,is also receiving significant attention.The German Supply Chain Act(Lk SG),adopted in 2021,is the latest legislative text of the EU member states and has come into force since January 2023,applicable to companies with more than 3,000 employees in Germany,and will lower the threshold to 1,000 employees in 2024.The German Supply Chain Act makes German companies responsible for their supply chains if they meet the criteria for the number of employees,and requires German companies to conduct due diligence on human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains and to take preventive,termination and remedial measures.The provisions in the law that stipulate the basic elements of the obligation subject,obligation content and legal consequences related to the enterprise’s due diligence obligation are called "due diligence rules".The law is the implementation of the German National Human Rights Action Plan at the legislative level,so it focuses on the protection of human rights in the supply chain of German enterprises,but it is not limited to this,and a large amount of space in the law stipulates that German enterprises should also fulfill certain due obligations in response to environmental risks in the supply chain,which has become one of the highlights of the law.In recent years,China has paid particular attention to environmental issues in enterprise supply chain governance,and the "13th Five-Year Plan" has clearly proposed to "accelerate the construction of green supply industry chain system".Therefore,this paper focuses on the environment-related due diligence rules in the German Supply Chain Act,namely "environmental due diligence rules".The German Supply Chain Act(Lk SG),adopted in 2021,is the latest legislative text of the EU member states and has come into force since January 2023,applicable to companies with more than 3,000 employees in Germany,and will lower the threshold to 1,000 employees in 2024.The German Supply Chain Act makes German companies responsible for their supply chains if they meet the criteria for the number of employees,and requires German companies to conduct due diligence on human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains and to take preventive,termination and remedial measures.The provisions in the law that stipulate the basic elements of the obligation subject,obligation content and legal consequences related to the enterprise’s due diligence obligation are called "due diligence rules".The law is the implementation of the German National Human Rights Action Plan at the legislative level,so it focuses on the protection of human rights in the supply chain of German enterprises,but it is not limited to this,and a large amount of space in the law stipulates that German enterprises should also fulfill certain due obligations in response to environmental risks in the supply chain,which has become one of the highlights of the law.In recent years,China has paid particular attention to environmental issues in enterprise supply chain governance,and the "13th Five-Year Plan" has clearly proposed to "accelerate the construction of green supply industry chain system".Therefore,this paper focuses on the environment-related due diligence rules in the German Supply Chain Act,namely "environmental due diligence rules".