SOLUTION
FMCG
We support clients with environmental and social due diligence across the FMCG supply chain.
THE PROBLEM
FMCG supply chains present profound human rights and environmental challenges.
FMCG businesses support livelihoods across complex, multi-tier supply chains, but those same networks carry significant risks. Forced labour in warehousing, child labour in raw material harvesting, and exploitative working conditions in processing facilities can all hide below the surface. So can unsafe chemical use and gender-based discrimination in manufacturing. Traditional audit-based approaches rarely capture these dynamic risks across the full depth and breadth of FMCG sourcing.
OUR SERVICES
Practical due diligence for FMCG businesses, built around your sourcing reality.
We work with FMCG brands, manufacturers, and retailers, along with their ingredient suppliers and packaging producers, to implement HRDD-aligned due diligence systems that meet regulatory requirements while strengthening operational performance. Our approach combines proprietary data intelligence with deep FMCG sector expertise to deliver practical, effective solutions tailored to your business needs.
We support FMCG brands and manufacturers to assess risks, impacts, and the maturity of responsible business practices across ingredient sourcing, packaging, and manufacturing operations.
- Deliver pragmatic, ESG-focused due diligence informed by extensive on-the-ground experience across food, beverage, personal care, and household product supply chains
- Provide clear, tailored reporting aligned with business and stakeholder needs
- Help retailers and brands identify and mitigate human rights, social, and environmental risks linked to suppliers and ingredient sources
- Conduct supplier due diligence for manufacturers, co-packers, ingredient suppliers, and raw material producers against industry standards and responsible sourcing frameworks
- Support investors and financiers in assessing ESG and human rights risks in FMCG transactions and M&A
- Enable FMCG companies to understand and manage ESG risks arising from procurement activities across complex ingredient and packaging supply chains
We are regularly asked to produce insight reports and data-driven research and analysis for a wide range of clients.
Our expert team of responsible sourcing specialists and data analysts have access to proprietary data insights which can help teams with:
- Informed decision making on complex topics using our in-depth data platform covering agricultural production regions, processing facilities, and manufacturing hubs globally
- Legislation gap analysis to support internal audit programs and help your audit team understand the most likely areas of non-conformance with regulations like the German Supply Chain Act, CSDDD, EUDR, and emerging forced labour legislation
- Developing risk assessments and opportunities for global FMCG companies' responsible sourcing programmes
- Developing bespoke supplier reports for your teams to understand potential risks, opportunities and gap assessments against your expected standards and codes of conduct
- Commodity-specific risk assessments for key ingredients including palm oil, cocoa, coffee, soy, sugar, vanilla, tea, spices, and other agricultural commodities
- Benchmarking and Maturity Assessment - We benchmark management systems and operating practices against compliance frameworks and responsible sourcing standards. Our deep data insights platform assesses current performance and identifies priority improvements across ingredient sourcing, manufacturing, and packaging operations.
- Management System Design and Implementation - We design and implement management systems for responsible business conduct and supply chain due diligence. This includes policies, procedures, risk assessment processes, supplier onboarding protocols, ingredient traceability systems, and reporting to meet regulatory requirements like the German Supply Chain Act, CSDDD, and EUDR.
- Audit Preparation and Corrective Action Support - We prepare FMCG brands, manufacturers, co-packers, and ingredient suppliers for audits against industry standards and assurance frameworks. Our support includes gap assessments, documentation development, staff training, and implementing corrective actions from previous audits.
Supplier Due Diligence Assessments - We deliver independent due diligence assessments against HRDD requirements and industry standards, covering ingredient suppliers and agricultural producers, manufacturing facilities and co-packers, and packaging suppliers. Our assessments include:
- Red flag evaluation against serious abuses including forced labour, child labour, and unsafe working conditions
- Sub-national risk classification using our proprietary risk assessment framework, revealing farm-level, facility-level, and district-level risk variation that national classifications miss
- Supply chain traceability verification and documentation review across multi-tier ingredient supply chains
- Stakeholder impact assessments including smallholder farmer engagement and worker voice
- Agricultural commodity risk assessments covering deforestation, water stress, agrochemical use, and land rights
- Clear gap analysis and corrective action recommendations
- Salient ESG issue identification specific to FMCG product categories and ingredient portfolios
- Comprehensive human rights and environmental risk profiling for sourcing regions and agricultural commodities
- Historical legacy issues and reputational exposure assessments
- Community and smallholder farmer relations vulnerabilities
- Labour rights conditions including seasonal workers, migrant labour, and agricultural workers
- Risk integration into sourcing decisions and supplier selection processes
Crafting and implementing a robust human rights strategy is complex, encompassing sustainable development, farmer and worker wellbeing, and mitigation of negative impacts. It must also consider environmental impacts, such as deforestation, water depletion, agrochemical pollution, and climate vulnerability.
We can help you determine if the specific human rights issues that affect your company are covered by other impact assessments or due diligence processes, and whether they require a separate HRIA, ensuring compliance with sustainable business regulations.
Awareness raising, sourcing and procurement team training to better understand risks, internal audit capacity training, as well as full audit training. Our auditors are accredited to the highest standards including ISO 14001, 45001, APSCA CSCA and have conducted thousands of audits globally. We can:
- Train your team in the environmental, social and governance issues present in FMCG supply chains, and how to identify and mitigate risk across ingredient sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution
- Help your team implement any improvement actions needed to close the gaps identified during audits and assessments
- Provide the tools to improve operations in line with international and recognised standards and regulations, developing long-term internal capacity
- Build supplier and smallholder farmer capability to meet brand standards and improve conditions throughout agricultural supply chains
- Deliver specialised training on commodity-specific risks such as palm oil, cocoa, and coffee
THE SOLUTION
FMCG supply chains are complex. We simplify your due diligence so you can trade with confidence.
We work with FMCG brands, manufacturers, and retailers, along with their ingredient suppliers and packaging producers, to implement HRDD-aligned due diligence systems that meet regulatory requirements while strengthening operational performance. Our approach combines proprietary data intelligence with deep FMCG sector expertise to deliver practical, effective solutions built around your business.
WHY OUR APPROACH WORKS
Targeted. Practical. Ethical.
Targeted risk intelligence
Most assurance services tell you whether a supplier passes or fails a checklist. We go further. Using our proprietary data platform, we assess risk by region, district, and facility, catching problems that national-level assessments routinely miss.
Built around your business
Whether you're a brand, manufacturer, retailer, ingredient supplier, or investor, we tailor our work to your situation. We help you meet the requirements of CSDDD, the German Supply Chain Act, and EUDR while building practical systems your team can actually use and sustain.
The ethical case
The people working in FMCG supply chains, including seasonal workers, migrant labourers, and smallholder farmers, are among the most vulnerable in the global economy. Rigorous, honest assurance is one of the most direct ways a business can ensure its products are not built on exploitation.