The Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) Compass is Fair Wear’s quarterly briefing, guiding global HREDD and inviting stakeholders to jointly address the challenges of implementing impactful due diligence. In each edition, Executive Director Annabel Meurs shares insights from our experience and opens the conversation around the key questions shaping due diligence today.
The OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector 2026 reflected a sentiment that I have been hearing in the industry for some time and that stuck with me; supply chain disruptions are ongoing and are here to stay. With sessions focusing on sourcing agility, extreme heat in factories and the impact of drop shipping on production planning, there was a strong focus on how to navigate emerging risks in volatile times.
Working at Fair Wear for the last 13 years has made it evident to me that the only way to navigate these risks effectively is by implementing impactful Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD). This consensus I saw reflected during the last OECD Forum as well, with Carmine Di Noia, the OECD Director for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, referring to HREDD as a ‘shock absorber’ for ongoing and repeated supply chain disruptions in his opening speech. And shortly after the Forum, the OECD published a case study on the essentials of due diligence, highlighting collaboration as one of the key opportunities for making due diligence implementation effective and efficient.
With over 26 years of implementing HRDD in the garment and footwear industry, working on responsible purchasing practices and industry-level standard-setting, Fair Wear has seen the evidence for this time and again: Brands and suppliers who collaborate on mature, worker-centred due diligence systems weather volatility more effectively. Companies that implement HREDD address risks earlier, maintain more stable and collaborative sourcing relationships and even get access to lower interest rates on loans.
The broad acceptance of HREDD, alongside existing due diligence frameworks, standards and regulatory guidance, is a strong starting point for the work we all need to do now. The gap is not in knowledge. The gap is in operationalisation and in making due diligence both practical and impactful.
At Fair Wear, we have established strong global stakeholder networks, both in Europe and in production countries. Together with our partners, we have been successfully improving labour conditions in garment and textile factories and developed a vast range of innovative guidance and tools that allow other companies to do the same. In 2026, we lean into a broader ambition: leveraging our close connections with diverse industry stakeholders to jointly propel the global journey towards impactful implementation of HREDD.
This first edition of the HREDD Compass sets the tone. My goal is simple and twofold:
- To bring to the forefront the operational challenges shaping HREDD today and;
- To open the dialogue on the questions the industry needs to address to navigate these challenges effectively.
Each quarter, I invite you to join this conversation on impactful due diligence by sharing your insights and experience. At Fair Wear, we will be weighing in on these questions as well, sharing the lessons learned from our experience working on standard setting in the industry, responsible business practices with brands and risk identification, remediation, and training with factories.
The first set of questions we will address this quarter focus on a key element of working together on due diligence: trust. With weakened and postponed due diligence legislation, which mechanisms are most effective in establishing trust and commitment to jointly work on human rights and environmental harms? Especially in times of volatility, how can we create the relationships of trust that are needed to successfully work on labour conditions and responsible purchasing practices, and that protect workers from responsibilities being shifted down the supply chain? And which role can multi-stakeholder initiatives play in supporting, promoting and facilitating this level-playing field?
I do not hold all the answers to these questions, but here is my contribution: Trust and commitment require shared responsibility and accountability. Firstly, trust cannot exist when responsibilities are one‑sided and only one party carries the burden of managing risks, remediating harms, or absorbing costs. The industry needs to move from risk‑shifting to risk‑sharing. Secondly, commitment requires being answerable for outcomes, not just actions. At Fair Wear, we observe a trend of focussing on actions instead of impact when discussing due diligence. But when each actor is accountable for the impact of their actions, long‑term commitment becomes meaningful rather than symbolic.
Where responsibility and accountability are shared, relationships shift from transactional to collaborative. This is what strengthens “relationships of trust,” especially in volatile contexts where supply chains are under pressure.
I look forward to hearing your perspective as well.
Sincerely,
– Annabel Meurs, Executive Director at Fair Wear