According to the ILO, the term “child labour” is work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that:

• Is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or
• Interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

It is important to distinguish between minimum age violations and the worst forms of child labour. The minimum age for work is defined as follows:

• The minimum age for work should not be less than the age for completing compulsory schooling, and in general, not less than 15 years. However, States whose economy and educational facilities are insufficiently developed may initially specify a minimum age of 14 years as a transitional measure (Minimum Age Convention No. 138).
• Children can engage in light work from 13 years of age (or 12 as a transitional measure), provided that it does not interfere with their education or vocational training and that it does not have a negative impact on their health (Minimum Age Convention No. 138).

The worst forms of child labour include (Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No. 182):

• The sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
• The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution or pornographic performances;
• The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities (e.g. production and trafficking of drugs).

Child labour also includes hazardous work performed by young workers over the legal minimum age for work but under 18 years. According to the ILO, hazardous work is defined as work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

Examples of hazardous child labour include:

• Work that exposes children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse;
• Work underground, underwater, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces;
• Work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools, or which involves the manual handling or transport of heavy loads;
• Work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging to their health;
• Work under particularly difficult conditions such as work for long hours or during the night or work where the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the employer.

The ILO provides further guidance on types of hazardous work, while national legislation often includes lists of prohibited hazardous activities for children. It is important to note that the list of prohibited hazardous activities will vary between states, depending on a variety of contextual factors; it is, therefore, often better to follow best practice and work to prevent children working in hazardous jobs.

Two ILO Conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provide the framework for national law to define a clear line between what is acceptable and what is not in terms of child employment. The effective abolition of child labour is one of the five fundamental rights and principles at work by the ILO which Member States must promote, irrespective of whether or not they have ratified the respective conventions listed below

• ILO Minimum Age Convention, No. 138 (1973) sets a general minimum age of 15 for employment with some exceptions for developing countries.
• ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, No. 182 (1999) prohibits worst forms of child labour, including hazardous work by young workers under 18.
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits child labour and requires signatories to regulate minimum age and conditions of work for children.

The ILO Convention No. 182 has been ratified by all 187 ILO Member States (the only ILO Convention that has achieved universal ratification). The UN Convention on the Right of the Child has also been ratified by all countries except the United States (although the United States signed the Convention). Furthermore, most States have ratified ILO Convention No. 138. This means that in most countries relevant national legislation should be in place to implement the terms of these international legal instruments. In due diligence, it is important to check the ratification status for particular countries as an indicator of potentially more limited state protections against child labour. However, ratification does not guarantee that these countries are free from child labour, as the existence and enforcement of national laws to address child labour varies.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set the global standard regarding the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights in their operations and across their value chains. The Guiding Principles call upon States to consider a smart mix of measures — national and international, mandatory and voluntary — to foster business respect for human rights. Businesses should consider the UNGPs in their operational and supply chain decisions, and when following national legislation.

Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBPs) were first proposed in 2010 and are based on existing standards, initiatives and best practices related to business and children. These Principles seek to define the scope of corporate responsibility towards children. Covering a wide range of critical issues – from child labour to marketing and advertising practices to the role of business in aiding children affected by emergencies – the Principles call on companies everywhere to respect children’s rights through their core business actions, but also through policy commitments, due diligence and remediation measures.

Companies are increasingly subject to non-financial reporting requirements and due diligence obligations in the jurisdictions in which they operate, which often include disclosures on their performance. There are several high-profile examples of national legislation that specifically mandate human rights-related reporting and other positive legal duties, such as due diligence, including the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015, Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2010, the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law 2017, the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains 2023 and the Norwegian Transparency Act 2022.

Also, in 2021 the Netherlands submitted a Bill for Responsible and Sustainable International Business Conduct, and the European Commission announced its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). This Directive is likely to come into force between 2025 and 2027 and will make human rights and environmental due diligence mandatory for larger companies.

These mandatory due diligence and disclosure laws require companies to publicly communicate their efforts to address actual and potential human rights impacts, including the worst forms of child labour. Failure to comply with these obligations leads to real legal risk for companies.

The prevention of child labour requires an understanding of its underlying causes and the consideration of a wide range of issues which may increase the risk of child labour, that often interfere and reinforce one another, such as inadequate family income and poor or non-existent educational facilities.

Key risk factors include:

• High rates of poverty and unemployment, especially where there is a lack of state support (e.g. unemployment benefits). In regions where adult unemployment is high, children may be required to work to assist the family.
• Low wages can exacerbate the prevalence of poverty and drive the need for children to work alongside their parents to supplement household income (see Living Wage issue).
• Lack of educational opportunities for children due to a lack of school facilities or where school tuition costs and educational materials are considered too expensive. Where educational facilities or other forms of childcare are missing, children tend to accompany (and often help) their parents at work.
• Lack of safe alternative pathways to employment results in adolescents finding themselves moving from one form of hazardous work to another. The alternative is for adolescents to have access to safe work that could lead to long-term employment.
• Poorly enforced domestic labour laws due to a lack of government resources, capacity or commitment to fully implement state duty to protect citizens against human rights violations. This can result in a lack of or inadequate training of labour inspectors, as well as improper payments made by employers to (sometimes poorly compensated) inspectors to overlook child labour violations.
• Informal economies are associated with higher child labour risks. Informality often leads to lower and less regular incomes, inadequate and unsafe working conditions, extreme job precarity and exclusion from social security schemes, among other factors. All of these can spur families to turn to child labour in the face of financial distress.
• Rural areas are also associated with a higher prevalence of child labour. There are 122.7 million rural children (13.9%) in child labour compared to 37.3 million urban children (4.7%). Job opportunities are often scarce in rural areas, leaving children to find work to assist their families, with government oversight of these areas much lower.
• Intersectionality, or the interaction between gender, race, ethnicity, age and other categories of difference, leads to increased child labour risks. For example, girls from an ethnic minority living in poor rural areas may be more exposed to the risks of child labour exploitation.

Whilst child labour is present in many industries, the following present particularly significant levels of risk. To identify potential child labour risks for other industries, companies can access the CSR Risk Check.

According to ILO 2020 estimates, around 70% of child labourers around the world — 112 million children — work in agriculture, including fishing, aquaculture and livestock rearing. Although certain work on family farms is acceptable for children — provided that it is not hazardous and does not prevent them from receiving an education — many forms of child work in agricultural supply chains are not legal. The US Department of Labor’s 2022  report suggests that the most common items produced by child labour in agriculture include bananas, cattle and dairy products, cocoa, coffee, cotton, fish, rice, sugar and tobacco.

Agriculture-specific risk factors include the following:

• Piece rate: Many agricultural jobs are paid by the amount of produce picked, which encourages parents to bring their children along with them to help collect greater volumes.
• Seasonal migrant labour: The agricultural sector traditionally relies heavily on migrant labour due to seasonality. This can mean the children of migrant labourers are often not in one place long enough to attend school, so work with their parents in the field instead.
• Families: Family-based child labour is hard for companies to identify, as family farms usually feed into larger co-operatives or wholesalers and are relatively invisible within the supply chain. Furthermore, family-based child labour can be easily hidden on inspection.

The fashion and apparel industry may be linked to significant child labour risks. Fashion and apparel-specific risk factors include the following:

• Subcontracting: This industry features a lot of subcontracting and outsourcing, making tracing where a product was made and by whom difficult. In-depth due diligence checks on this part of a supply chain are, therefore, often overlooked.
• Homeworking: Homeworking is particularly hard to monitor, as the location of homeworking is often unknown to companies and there is no way to control working hours or who is doing the work. Research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the activities often outsourced to homeworkers are usually finishing tasks, such as beading, embroidery or adding tassels — activities that require delicate handiwork as opposed to being produced by machinery in a factory. Children’s smaller hands can be considered useful for this delicate handiwork.
• Gender: There is a significant gender aspect in this regard, with studies showing most homeworkers in the apparel industry are women and girls (see Gender Equality issue).

Child labour takes place in parts of the informal artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) industry and has been associated with the mining of “conflict minerals” — tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold — among other minerals such as cobalt. ASM work can be dangerous and personal protective equipment (PPE) is rarely provided. The US Department of Labor’s 2022 report suggests that gold, coal, granite, gravel, diamonds and mica are all associated with child labour.

Mining-specific risk factors include the following:

• Small and slight: Children are often involved in digging as they can get into tighter spaces to mine, or in carrying mined products like gems or metals between extraction sites and refining/washing/filtering sites.
• Global supply chains: Minerals mined by children can end up in global supply chains, including those of automobiles, construction, cosmetics, electronics, and jewellery. For example, the increased production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries has led to the growing demand for cobalt — an essential battery input. Approximately 70% of cobalt (as of January 2023) comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world where ASM activity is common, thus increasing child labour risks.

The electronics manufacturing industry poses child labour risks, as well as risks for young workers.

Industry-specific risk factors include the following:

• Work experience: In several Asian and South-East Asian countries, there are government programmes with major businesses for students and young workers to get work experience. However, there are reports of these programmes being abused, with student and young workers having their IDs faked so they can work longer and more hazardous hours.
• Materials: Electronics companies may be linked to child labour via their mineral supply chains given that some of the minerals and metals used to manufacture electronic components can be associated with significant child labour risks (i.e. during the mining process), such as gold — see the section on mining.

Businesses in the travel and tourism industry (e.g. hotels, restaurants and tour companies) may be linked to the risks of child labour and has significant risks of facilitating child trafficking, particularly in the aviation industry.

Travel and tourism-specific risk factors include the following:

• Developing countries: Children in developing countries are often put to work selling tourist gifts or supporting family businesses like restaurants. Although this type of work is acceptable for children — provided that it is not hazardous and does not prevent them from receiving an education — it may also constitute child labour if it does preclude children’s school attendance.
• Child sexual exploitation: Child sex tourism does exist, and the trafficking or use of children for sexual activities for tourists occurs around the world.

Businesses in other sectors that use travel and tourism services as part of their business activities or in their supply chains may also be linked to child exploitation.

This section outlines due diligence steps that companies can take to eliminate child labour in their operations and supply chains. The described due diligence steps are aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Further information on UNGPs is provided in the ‘Key Human Rights Due Diligence Frameworks’ section below or in the Introduction.

While the below steps provide guidance on eliminating child labour in particular, it is generally more resource-efficient for companies to ‘streamline’ their human rights due diligence processes by also identifying and addressing other relevant human rights issues (e.g. forced labour, discrimination, freedom of association) at the same time.

Research of 2,500 companies across nine industries conducted by the Global Child Forum suggests that 57% of companies have some form of stand-alone policy against child labour. Examples of companies with stand-alone child labour policies include ALDI South, H&M and ASOS. These tend to be companies that have identified child labour as a highly salient issue.

Another option is to integrate child labour commitments into companies’ wider human rights policy, an option that has been taken by Unilever, Marks and Spencer and Freeport-McMoRan. Where companies do not have a human rights policy, child labour is often addressed in other policy documents, such as a business code of conduct or ethics and/or a supplier code of conduct. Starbucks, BHP and HP offer examples of multinational companies that integrate child labour requirements into their codes of conduct. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), such as Haas & Co. Magnettechnik GmbH, also often include child labour in their business code of conduct or supplier code of conduct.

Businesses may want to check the ILO Helpdesk for Business, which provides answers to the most common questions that businesses may encounter while developing their child labour policies — or integrating child labour commitments into other policy documents. Examples include:

• I am trying to figure out why the basic minimum age is set at 15 or 14. What would be the consequences of setting a global policy with a basic minimum age at 16?
• A company is committed to not recruiting people below 18 years old, but the company operates in States where people below 18 have the right to work. Can it be considered as a breach of ILO Conventions related to discrimination?
• What are the general recommendations concerning apprenticeships to use when clarifying our child labour requirements to our suppliers?

Businesses may also consider aligning their policies with relevant industry-wide or cross-industry policy commitments, for example:

• Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct
• Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code
• amfori BSCI Code of Conduct
• Fair Labor Association (FLA) Code of Conduct
• The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism initiated by ECPAT, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and several tour operators

Child labour impact assessments are most often integrated into broader human rights impact assessments (for example Freeport-McMoRan). The ILO-IOE Child Labour Guidance Tool for Businesses includes suggestions on how to identify and assess actual and potential child labour impacts; how to prioritize operations and parts of a supply chain to conduct more detailed assessments; and how to conduct stakeholder engagement. If impact assessments involve children through interviews or other data gathering mechanisms, strict safeguarding measures should be put in place to protect the children from any potential harm, such as employer retaliation or unplanned termination of employment.

The actions and systems that a company will need to apply will vary depending on the outcomes of its impact assessment. Any actions should take into account (and try to address) risk factors and root causes of child labour, i.e. what caused or might cause a human rights violation.

One of the most common actions undertaken by companies is training of company employees and suppliers, which may cover child labour laws, company policies, procedures to ascertaining the age of workers and detect falsified documentation, and safety and health procedures for young workers (which often differ from those required for adults). Training can be delivered in a range of formats, such as online videos, e-learnings, in-person sessions or supplier round tables. Coca-Cola, for example, conducts training on human rights (including child labour) for employees, bottlers, suppliers and auditors. Another example is PepsiCo that conducts training for suppliers on PepsiCo’s Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes the prohibition of child labour. Businesses, however, should be mindful that training alone will not solve the problem, for example, if parents have no other option than to bring their children to work (be it for economic reasons or for lack of access to education etc.). Hence, the need to address root causes of child labour.

The ILO-IOE Child Labour Guidance Tool for Businesses includes further suggestions of practical approaches by companies to prevent or mitigate child labour in their operations and supply chains, including:

• Proactively communicating their short and medium-term needs to suppliers and other business partners so that they can plan ahead appropriately;
• Enhancing alignment and collaboration between the purchasing team and sustainability or responsible sourcing experts inside the buying company;
• Moving to integrate the two functions, making purchasing managers directly responsible for social compliance in relation to the suppliers they buy from;
• Participating in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) whose code requires members to evaluate the role that purchasing practices can play in incentivizing negative impacts by suppliers.

Ferrero and Olam International are examples of companies taking action on child labour in cocoa supply chains through their membership in the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI). Hilton and TUI Group work on protecting children from commercial sexual exploitation — one of the worst forms of child labour — through their membership in The Code initiative.

Businesses should regularly review their approach to eliminating child labour to see if it is effective and is having the desired impact. The ILO-IOE Child Labour Guidance Tool for Businesses includes suggestions on systems for tracking performance.

Audits and social monitoring are common ways to check performance. Such monitoring or audits can be undertaken internally by the company or a third party contracted by the company. A common approach or first step taken by companies is to issue self-assessment questionnaires (SAQs) to suppliers, requesting information and evidence on their child labour procedures, such as how they verify the age of their workers or their own approach to managing child labour. Repeated SAQs can give insight into improvements in supplier management systems and let suppliers self-report on actual or potential child labour impacts.

Where SAQ results warrant it, companies can carry out on-the-ground (or in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic) remote suppliers audits. Common supplier audit frameworks that span most industries and include child labour indicators include SMETA audits and SA8000 accredited audits. General Mills, for example, conducts SMETA audits of its suppliers and co-packers.

If shortcomings are identified, Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) should be developed jointly with the supplier, setting out clear targets and milestones for improvement. Progress should then be tracked regularly to ensure CAP completion.

Setting SMART targets helps objectively track performance. SMART targets are those that are: specific, measurable, attainable, resourced and time-bound. Examples of indicators to be recorded and monitored include:

• Child labour grievances recorded (number and nature)
• Audit findings on child labour
• Progress on Corrective Action Plans
• Media reports on instances of child labour
• Official inspection outcomes

Responsibility for data collection should be clearly allocated to relevant roles within the company and reported with a set frequency (for instance once a month).

Although both SAQs and audits are commonly used by companies in various industries, both tools have limitations in their ability to uncover hidden violations, including child labour. Unannounced audits somewhat mitigate this problem but even these are not always effective at identifying violations given that an auditor tends to spend only limited time on-site. Furthermore, human rights violations, including child labour, often happen further up supply chains, whereas audits often only cover ‘Tier 1’ suppliers.

New tools such as technology-enabled worker surveys/‘worker voice’ tools allow real-time monitoring and partly remedy the problems of traditional audits. An increasing number of companies complement traditional audits with ‘worker voice’ surveys (e.g. Unilever and VF Corporation), which can be easily adapted to different languages to accommodate workers’ needs.

Some companies go further and adopt ‘beyond audit’ approaches, which are built on proactive collaboration with suppliers rather than on supplier monitoring (‘carrots’ rather than ‘sticks’). Collaborating with other stakeholders, including workers’ organizations, law enforcement authorities, labour inspectorates and non-governmental organizations to proactively identify and remediate child labour can also prove to be effective. Progress reports from MSIs, such as the Responsible Mica Initiative, may also be helpful to track improvements in areas that are highly relevant to the occurrence of child labour.

Companies are expected to communicate their performance on eliminating child labour in a formal public report, which can take a form of a standalone child labour report (e.g. Nestlé’s Tackling Child Labour reports). More commonly, however, an update on progress with eliminating child labour is included in a broader sustainability or human rights report (e.g. Unilever’s Human Rights reports), or in an annual Communication on Progress (CoP) in implementing the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact. Additionally, other forms of communication may include in-person meetings, online dialogues and consultation with affected stakeholders.

The ILO-IOE Child Labour Guidance Tool for Businesses includes detailed recommendations on the form and frequency of a company’s communications on child labour, the nature of provided information and the risks of communication to children and their families.

Grievance mechanisms can play an important role in helping to remediate child labour issues in operations and supply chains. Grievance mechanisms should be:

• Created with input from the affected groups they are intended to help;
• Available in multiple formats and languages to accommodate workers’ needs. For instance, a high prevalence of migrant labour means a mechanism will need to be available in different languages, or illiteracy may require the mechanism to be explained to workers in a format other than writing (for example a video or presentation).

If instances of child labour are identified, corrective actions should be taken to protect the child from child labour and ensure that the child is not left in a worse situation due to loss of income. Ensuring viable alternatives is key. Child-focused actions can include:

• Providing education alongside work if the child is above the minimum age, but if the child is below minimum age the child should be progressively withdrawn from child labour;
• Removing the child but paying the wages they would have earned until they reach working age;
• Assisting the child in finding education opportunities once removed from work; and
• Assisting the child in finding employment opportunities upon reaching the legal working age.

Businesses may also want to consider cooperation with third parties to remediate child labour, including education officials, NGOs, public health officials and other companies using the same supply chain. In cases concerning the worst forms of child labour, this may even be a legal requirement. MSIs are also helpful in designing child labour remediation programmes, i.e. exchanging thoughts and ideas, and combining remediation efforts. Examples of companies with child labour remediation programmes include Nestlé and ASOS.

This section includes examples of company actions to address child labour in their operations and supply chains.

Examples of further guidance on child labour include:

• United Nations Global Compact, The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact: The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact provide universal guidance for sustainable business in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. Principle 5 calls on businesses to uphold the elimination of child labour.
• United Nations Global Compact, Business: It’s Time to Act: Decent Work, Modern Slavery & Child Labour: This brief guide offers an overview of the steps businesses can take to help eliminate child labour while highlighting key resources, initiatives and engagement opportunities to support business action.
• ILO, COVID-19 and Child Labour: A Time of Crisis, a Time to Act: This report outlines the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on child labour trends.
• ILO, Understanding the Health Impact of Children’s Work: This study brings together information from a wide variety of nationally representative household surveys in an attempt to shed additional light on the health effects of children’s work within and across less-industrialized countries and on which types of children’s work pose the greatest risk of ill-health.
• ILO, Towards the Urgent Elimination of Hazardous Child Labour: This report brings together and assesses new research on hazardous child labour and provides recommendations on prevention and protection.
• ILO, Improving the Safety and Health of Young Workers: This report provides a definition of young workers and outlines factors threatening their safety and health.
• ILO, Ending Child Labour, Forced Labour And Human Trafficking In Global Supply Chains: This report aims to help businesses develop policies and practices to prevent child labour in global supply chains.
• ILO, OECD, IOM and UNICEF, Multi-Stakeholder Initiative on Ending Child Labour, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking in Global Supply Chains: This resource provides recommendations on responsible business conduct on labour and human rights, including developing due diligence on child labour.
• ILO Helpdesk for Business, Country Information Hub: This resource can be used to inform human rights due diligence, providing specific country information on different labour rights.
• UNICEF, UN Global Compact and Save the Children, Children’s Rights and Business Principles: The Principles (particularly 2, 3 and 4) guide companies on actions they can take to prevent child labour.
• UNICEF and UN Global Compact, Children in Humanitarian Crises: What Business Can Do: A report on how business can help uphold children’s rights — including freedom from child labour — and support and promote their well-being during humanitarian crises.
• UNICEF, Tool for Investors on Integrating Children’s Rights into ESG Assessment: This tool has been designed to guide investors on integrating children’s rights into the evaluation of ESG opportunities and performance of investee companies.
• UNICEF, Mapping Child Labour Risks in Global Supply Chains: This paper provides a detailed analysis of the Apparel, Electronics and Agricultural Sectors. It was written as a background report for the Alliance 8.7 report on “Ending child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains”.
• UNICEF, Engaging Stakeholder’s on Children’s Rights: This tool offers guidance to companies on how to engage stakeholders on children’s rights to help enhance their standards and practices at both the corporate and site levels.
• UNICEF, UN Global Compact and Save the Children, Children Introduce the Children’s Rights and Business Principles: This video features children from Panama teaching businesses about the Children’s Rights and Business Principles.
• UNICEF, Child Rights and Security Handbook: This tool provides details on how to implement the Child Rights and Security Checklist – a checklist for companies to improve the protection of children’s rights within security programs.
• Alliance 8.7, Delta 8.7 Knowledge Platform: A global knowledge platform providing resources on eradicating forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour.
• Stop Child Labour, Handbook: 5×5 Stepping Stones for Creating Child Labour Free Zones: The stepping stones presented in this handbook are based on the stories and strategies of NGOs, unions and child labour free zone members worldwide. The handbook shows that — in spite of poverty — it is possible to get children out of work and into school.
• SME Compass, Due Diligence Compass: This online tool offers guidance on the overall human rights due diligence process by taking businesses through five key due diligence phases.
• SME Compass, Standards Compass: This online tool offers guidance on what to pay attention to when selecting sustainability standards or when participating in multi-stakeholder initiatives. It allows comparing standards and initiatives with respect to their contribution to human rights due diligence and their potential limitations.
• SME Compass, Measuring and reporting on progress: This resource provides an overview of how to measure and report on the progress of the actions taken to address human rights impacts.
• SME Compass, Downloads: Practical guides and checklists are available for download on the SME compass website to embed due diligence processes, improve supply chain management and make mechanisms more effective.