Technical Guidance on Due Diligence for Living Income

The Technical Guidance on Due Diligence for Living Income, commissioned by the Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP), provides a practical and comprehensive framework that supports agribusiness companies in implementing human rights due diligence (HRDD) for living income in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

Unanimously adopted in 2011, the UNGPs set the benchmark for responsible business action on human rights and are strongly aligned with emerging regulatory requirements including the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Over the last 15 years, companies – large and small – have successfully used these principles to demonstrate how businesses can take principled yet pragmatic actions to address human rights risks across their operations and value chains.

Many businesses are already implementing initiatives to address living income challenges. As this Guidance shows, applying a HRDD lens to living income efforts, can generate greater momentum by: 

• Providing clearer direction for companies on identifying and prioritising living income as a salient risk: assessing not only whether it is a risk, but also determining which commodities, locations, vulnerable communities and contexts face the most severe and likely impacts;
• Clarifying how pricing and purchasing practices can contribute to-or help close- living income gaps, and underscoring the importance of reviewing business models and commercial practices - individually and in collaboration with others;
• Establishing leadership oversight and governance for living income, and developing clear action plans for HRDD;
• Engaging suppliers to cascade responsibility, and working collaboratively with them to solve challenges;
• Using leverage proactively and demonstrating how the company strategically applies its influence to work with industry peers, governments and others, to address systemic barriers to living income;
• Tracking progress to measure the effectiveness of their living income strategies and integrating learning and feedback to continually strengthen practices;
• Recognising that addressing living income challenges can be difficult yet reaffirming that responsible business requires engaging with these issues and persisting in efforts to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable farmers and their communities are not left behind. 

It is the hope of LICOP and its partners that this guidance is a timely resource to support wider adoption of HRDD by agribusiness, helping companies address and mitigate living income gaps for smallholder farmers – particularly those who are the most disadvantaged

 

Get in touch

For more information about the project, please contact Anny, Manager for Sustainability Systems and Livelihoods at ISEAL, anny(at)isealalliance.org. 

 

Supported by:

The creation of this document was made possible through funding from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and UK International Development from the UK government. The views expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of our donors.