EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Effective remedy starts with understanding how a company is involved in harm. Under the UNGPs, causing or contributing to an impact calls for providing or cooperating in remediation. Direct linkage through a business relationship calls for using leverage to prevent or mitigate harm, without automatically creating the same remediation responsibility. Build accessible grievance channels, engage affected people and define decision and escalation rules. Record the investigation, response and evidence of outcomes, while assessing applicable CSDDD and national requirements separately.
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) aims to harmonise corporate responsibility for human rights and environmental impacts, including requirements for remedy and grievance mechanisms. While the Directive generally aligns with the UNGPs, the EU Omnibus would weaken several provisions designed to improve remedy for victims.
Based on our experience working with companies on access to remedy and the development of effective grievance mechanisms, the following elements of the UNGPs and the CSDDD merit particular attention from companies.
Elements of access to remedy: what companies need to keep straight
1) Scope of business responsibilities
Access to remedy is a human right. The UNGPs expect companies that caused or contributed to adverse human-rights impacts to provide for or cooperate in remediation through legitimate processes. Where harm is only directly linked through a business relationship, the company should seek to prevent or mitigate it through leverage. The UNGPs do not automatically require the company itself to provide remediation, although it may take a role.
Both the UNGPs and the CSDDD require companies to provide or cooperate in remedy when they cause or contribute to an impact, referred to as “jointly caused” in the Directive. Remedy aims to restore affected rightsholders as closely as possible to their situation before the harm occurred.
Where an impact is caused solely by a business partner, the CSDDD asks companies to:
voluntarily provide remedy, and
use their influence to enable effective remedy.
This underscores the importance of leverage. Companies are expected to use their influence to prevent and mitigate impacts, including those related to failures to provide remedy.
2) Proportionality
Both frameworks emphasise proportionality: remediation should correspond to the severity of the impact and the company’s involvement. For senior professionals, this requires governance discipline, including clear decision rules, escalation thresholds, and consistent, defensible outcomes.
3) Remedy ecosystem
The original CSDDD included a harmonised EU civil-liability rule. Directive (EU) 2026/470 removed that rule and certain representative-action provisions. Civil liability can still arise under national law, and the amended directive retains a full-compensation principle where national liability is established. National procedural rules may still permit representative claims.
4) Remediation mechanisms: “complaints procedure” and “notification mechanism”
Both frameworks require companies to establish or participate in accessible grievance mechanisms, referred to in the CSDDD as a “complaints procedure.” These mechanisms serve as early warning systems for actual or potential impacts, not merely as reporting channels.
The UNGPs define effectiveness criteria for grievance mechanisms, which the CSDDD reinforces:
legitimate
accessible
predictable
equitable
transparent
rights-compatible
a source of continuous learning
In addition, the CSDDD mandates an accessible “notification mechanism” so persons and entities can submit information or concerns about actual or potential adverse impacts, including options for anonymity and safeguards against retaliation.
Companies may use appropriate joint initiatives while retaining their responsibilities. The amended CSDDD harmonises specified due-diligence provisions, including Article 14. Article 4 also preserves defined space for more stringent or more specific national provisions. It is not a blanket ban on higher national protection.
5) Stakeholder engagement
Both frameworks frame remediation as dependent on engagement and dialogue with stakeholders. The Omnibus narrows the definition of “stakeholder” to “directly” affected workers and their representatives, individuals, and communities whose rights or interests could be directly affected.
However, it retains the requirement to consult affected individuals when providing or cooperating in remediation and in developing and operating effective grievance mechanisms. The narrower scope may make it more difficult to identify impacts deeper in the value chain, potentially reducing victims’ access to effective remedy.
At Futureproof Solutions, our experience with human rights due diligence across Europe shows that the quality of remedy depends on whether engagement is structured, adequately resourced, and integrated into decision-making.
Facilitating and providing effective remedy
Meeting UNGP expectations is the most robust way to stay aligned as regulatory implementation evolves and anticipate the new CSDDD becoming effective. Four priorities stand out.
1) Know and strengthen your remedy ecosystem
Map the remedy ecosystem, including peer and multi-stakeholder initiatives with grievance mechanisms. Use this mapping to design effective grievance mechanisms, apply leverage to address harm, engage business partners and stakeholders, and plan for responsible exits when necessary. A strong ecosystem extends reach, supports creative solutions where direct oversight is limited, and improves access to remedy for rightsholders.
2) Develop and maintain effective grievance mechanisms
The amended CSDDD retains risk-based scoping across companies’ own operations, subsidiaries and business partners in their chains of activities, followed by deeper assessment where impacts are most likely and severe. Grievance channels help identify concerns, including those involving indirect partners. They do not replace that proactive assessment.
3) Conduct meaningful stakeholder engagement
Engagement is essential for understanding and strengthening a company’s remedy ecosystem, and the CSDDD provides UNGP-aligned criteria for this process. Despite the Omnibus changes, companies should proactively engage stakeholders, including civil society, to address concerns about actual or potential impacts, including those from indirect business partners.
4) Provide effective remedy, and evidence it
Providing remedy requires assessing whether the company caused, contributed to, or is directly linked to adverse impacts. International standards recognise multiple forms of remedy, which may be used individually or in combination:
restitution
compensation
rehabilitation
satisfaction
guarantees of non-repetition
For affected rightsholders, an effective remedy must be accessible, affordable, adequate, and timely.
Practical next steps
Document your remedy ecosystem and specify when to use internal channels versus joint initiatives.
Benchmark your “complaints procedure” against the UNGP effectiveness criteria and assign responsibility for addressing any gaps.
Clearly define the “notification mechanism,” including anonymity, anti-retaliation safeguards, and clear handling standards.
Establish decision rules for “cause, contribute, direct link,” including approval thresholds for remedy decisions.
Define how you will use influence with business partners to enable remedy where a partner solely caused harm.
Standardise evidence across cases: intake, triage, investigation, outcome, and continuous learning so compliance and value claims stand up to scrutiny.
How Futureproof Solutions helps
At Futureproof Solutions, we help companies run effective remedy as a business control that protects value. That means designing grievance and notification mechanisms that function as early warning systems, setting decision rules for “cause, contribute, direct link,” and translating leverage expectations into procurement and contractor controls.
Through our human rights and supply chain due diligence and growth through sustainability practices, we help organisations put clear responsibilities, practical controls and supporting evidence in place for decisions and reporting.
Please contact us to discuss how we can support your needs.