As you diversify your supply chain and increase reliance on third parties, balancing efficiency with effective risk management becomes more complex. Today’s supply chains are influenced by geopolitical uncertainty, changing trade policies, evolving ESG regulation, stakeholder expectations and reputational risk. You are expected to ensure the integrity of cross-border operations while demonstrating that your organisation — and its partners — meet growing standards for sustainability and responsible conduct.

Our integrated customs and sustainability team combines trade compliance expertise with ESG insight. We work with you to embed supply chain due diligence into your operations and prepare your business for new and emerging regulatory obligations across the EU.

How BDO can help

sleek-number-1-on-green-background

Supply Chain ESG Risk Assessments

We identify and mitigate risks in both direct operations and extended value chains. Our structured process evaluates human rights, environmental performance, governance practices, and trade-related vulnerabilities. We can support you with:

Value Chain Mapping: visualising suppliers, sub-suppliers, and logistics flows to identify risk hotspots.
Supplier Due Diligence Surveys: assessing supplier policies, working conditions, and human rights performance.
Modern Slavery Safeguards: designing and embedding control mechanisms aligned with the UK Modern Slavery Act and international best practice.

sleek-number-2-on-green-background

Supply Chain Resilience

We support clients in transitioning from reactive compliance to proactive supply chain resilience. This includes:

Assessing exposure to ESG violations and trade restrictions.
Embedding due diligence into procurement processes and supplier contracts.
Pre-empting non-compliance risks that could lead to fines, legal disputes, shipment delays, or reputational harm and preparing for upcoming legislation.

Meeting EU Market Access Requirements

Global trade increasingly ties market entry to sustainability performance. We help companies interpret and comply with product and customs-related regulations, including:

EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR): The ESPR changes how manufacturers bring products to market across the EU. We can guide manufacturers on gathering and validating supplier compliance and sustainability information across global supply chains to meet requirements for durability, circularity, and energy efficiency.
Digital Product Passport (DPP): supporting systems to collect, verify, and report supplier and product-level data required for EU market access.
CBAM reporting: reporting emissions data on products imported into the EU where applicable.
EU Deforestation Regulation: Implementing tracing mechanisms for commodities subject to the EUDR such as palm oil, beef, timber, cocoa, and soy.