Commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the CSR Risk Check was developed by MVO Nederland and Shopworks. The German version of the CSR Risk Check is commissioned by the NAP Helpdesk on Business and Human Rights located the Agency for Business & Economic Development. MVO Nederland is the legal owner of the CSR Risk Check and is solely responsible for collecting and processing data. Read more about this in the privacy statement.
The CSR Risk Check makes use of the most up-to-date external sources on CSR risks in international trading. At present there are 3069 data sources processed which have been translated into 4792 different risks and 539 recommendations for countries and products/services.
The risks and advices in the CSR Risk Check are based on public sources and are in line with the themes from the OECD Guidelines and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In the CSR Risk Check, gender-neutral descriptions are used where possible in describing risks. If risks are relevant for both men and women, the most common or neutral terms are used. If risks are not applicable to both men and women, gender-specific terms will be used.
All companies and organisations are expected to abide local laws and regulations of the countries where their business takes place. If local laws are absent, inadequate, or not upheld, international guidelines such as the OECD Guidelines and the ILO conventions are normative. This means that, despite all the present legislation on CSR issues in a given country (such as criminal environmental offenses or a ban on child labour), CSR risks still occur. Moreover, the CSR Risk Check does not provide information on the presence or absence of local laws and regulations, unless this creates specific CSR risks (e.g. law that facilitates discrimination or prohibits trade unions).
The list of countries and territories that is used the CSR Risk Check is ISO 3166 standard, which is based on the official list of country and territory names as defined by the United Nations Statistics Division. For the world map Google Maps is used, this means that land borders and country names mentioned on this map are not the responsibility of CSR Netherlands For the product classification in the tool, the SITC codes were used, also established by the United Nations Statistics Division. The product list is complemented by services that are derived from the UN ISIC system.
MVO Nederland cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information supplied since it entirely bases itself on external sources and merely makes those more accesible. MVO Nederland and its project partners are constantly working to supplement and update this database. Should you be aware of any sources (websites, reports) that are interesting to record in our database, please let us know via csrriskcheck@mvonederland.nl. The method we use to check the reliability of sources can be obtained using the same email address.
CSR risk information is not (yet) available for all countries and products, so 'no information found' does not imply there are no risks. MVO Nederland does not state the severity of an identified risk, nor the chance of it occurring in relation to a specific business endeavour. The risks are ranked in a random order. As a company, you are responsible for 1) the interpretation of the severity of risks in relation to the activities of your company; and 2) the formulation and implementation of appropriate measures to reduce or mitigate these risks.
Undertaking the CSR Risk Check is voluntary and has no legal consequences, for example when applying for government grants.
The information from the CSR Risk Check may be used for commercial purposes, under the condition that the CSR Risk Check and MVO Nederland are clearly referenced.
If you have any questions about the CSR Risk Check, please contact us via csrriskcheck@mvonederland.nl.
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