Road Transport Human Rights Due Diligence Project

Due Diligence in Road Transport

Almost every product in warehouses, shopes and homes has spent time on the back of a lorry. Yet due diligence often focuses on where ingredients and materials are sourced, and where products are made and sold, and far less on how goods travel in between.

Our members recognise the complex and systemic challenges faced by the road transport industry. They span driver pay, rest times, drivers’ return home, recruitment practices, sub-contracting and transparency, in a highly competitive and fragmented sector where the strategic importance of goods transport is often overlooked. The result can be working conditions that are unacceptable for responsible businesses.

To this end the project team is focusing on the following deliverables:

• Clear guidance to companies (both shippers and carriers) on how to ensure respect of legislation and implement HRDD – this will be provided by the RTDD Foundation.
• Verification tools to be deployed by shippers with carriers, including an audit module for carrier head quarter management systems audits and a driver interview module (both open source), in collaboration with DNV.

As a first step to engaging with carriers, AIM-Progress organised an event on due diligence in road transport on 24 September in Brussels,  co-sponsored by Danone, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Tetra Pak and Unilever.

To learn more contact katrin.recke@aim.be