The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) and the Institute for Sustainability, Corporate Law and Reporting (INUR) at the University of Cologne are jointly researching corporate due diligence in the context of supply and value chains. On Friday, 5 July 2024, Professor Barbara Dauner-Lieb, Director of the INUR, Stefan Kingler and Leyla Pelka welcomed their Viennese colleagues to Cologne for a joint exchange of ideas.

Camilla Haake and Stephen Rabenlehner from the “Sustainability, Development, Business, Social” (NEWS) programme line presented the status quo of the research project together with Michael Lysander Fremuth, Scientific Director of the LBI-GMR and Professor of Fundamental and Human Rights at the University of Vienna. Together with their colleagues from Cologne, the researchers discussed the current status of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which forms the starting point of the project. They also discussed current legal issues surrounding the use of audits and certifications in the corporate context and compared Austrian and German private law. The possible use of technical aids and artificial intelligence (AI) and the associated challenges were also discussed. The academics will continue their research in the coming months on the basis of the content discussed in Cologne.

The research project “Audits and certifications in supply/value chains”, funded by the Vienna Chamber of Labor (AK), examines the use of audits and certifications as instruments to support companies in complying with their due diligence obligations in accordance with the CSDDD. The aim of the project is to develop an independent scientific study. The results of the research work are expected to be presented to the public in January 2025.