Understanding the 2023 update of the OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct

We have been using and working with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct extensively. We welcome the 2023 update reflecting a decade of experience since their last update back in 2011. We encourage governments, multilaterals, companies, and investors to closely review the 2023 edition, providing a consensual framework to define responsibilities and the level of action needed by every economic stakeholder to address the urgent social, environmental, and technological priorities facing societies and businesses today. In many respects, this update is totally consistent with the tools, recommendations and activities already carried out by Ksapa with its existing range of customers

Key updates in the 2023 version

• Recommendations for enterprises to align with internationally agreed goals on climate change and biodiversity. Net zero is a contentious subject for very good reasons. This update confirms that it is no longer possible to claim to be a responsible company without ambitions in line with the Paris Agreement and the TNFD framework.

• Recommendations for due diligence on the development, financing, sale, licensing, trade, and use of technology, including gathering and using data. Ksapa not only extensively works with financial institutions on these complex issues. But Ksapa has also developed a wealth of methodological and functional expertise with its customers on responsible digitization issues.

• Recommendations on how enterprises are expected to conduct due diligence on impact and business relationships, including the use of their products and services. Ksapa’s methodologies, already aligned with the best market standards, have been encouraging our customers to work not only on the supply chain, but also on the downstream part of the value chain, including products and services, for years.

• Better protection for at-risk persons and groups, including those who raise concerns regarding the conduct of businesses

• Updated recommendations on disclosing non-financial information on sustainability materiality, and human rights risk mapping, as these tools do not prioritize subjects using the same set of criteria

• Expanded due diligence recommendations to include all forms of corruption

• Recommendations for enterprises to ensure lobbying activities are consistent with the Guidelines

• Procedures to standardize the way the various national contact points on responsible business conduct operate. Ksapa’s teams have had the opportunity to work with and assist in the mediation of various sensitive cases, with several of these NCPs, across several OECD countries

Applying the 2023 OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct in Your Operations

Ksapa is already a very active global initiative in the promotion and application of the 2023 Guiding Principles:

• Ksapa is extensively deploying its consulting programs, working closely with multinational companies and investors across every industry, to ensure they operate in compliance with multiple regulatory frameworks referring to the OECD Guidelines.

• Ksapa is already using the OECD Guidelines to develop open-source toolkits with companies and investors willing to define investment and purchasing practices aligned with best practices, continuously referring to the OECD Guidelines among several other frameworks including: G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights and ILO Core Conventions, Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Such collaborative programs include stakeholder alignment between multilateral funders and construction companies of large infrastructures on climate and human rights, or working closely with multinational companies and investors willing to ensure responsible investments in green transition.

• Ksapa is aligning its supply chain programs, mitigating environmental and human rights risks consistent with the OECD Guidelines as well as with concrete impact measurement indicators, demonstrating how we are actively improving livelihoods of thousands of vulnerable workers around the world.

Finally, Ksapa recently signed a multi-year contract with the OECD. Ksapa will thus also be working closely with the OECD to implement these updated guidelines through various collaborative programs and initiatives in 2023 and beyond.

We stand at the ready to provide more detailed guidance on the 2023 version. We look forward to hearing from you soon and work together using this very critical framework building better ESG performance and trust for investors and business alike around the world.