As part of the round table on the “Corporate Social Responsibility Directive” (CSDDD) of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy and the Federal Ministry of Justice, Melanie Rainer and Maria Riegler gave a keynote speech on support measures for companies – especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In their presentation, the two speakers also referred to the study “Supply Chain Responsibility in Austria” published in August by FHWien der WKW, which was prepared together with Markus Scholz, Anna M. Burton and Katharina Eggenweber. The study results showed that Austrian SMEs are currently mainly affected by supply chain regulations in other countries without benefiting from them themselves.
Although only 0.1% of domestic companies are directly affected by the current directive proposal of the European Commission. This directive is intended to oblige companies to respect human and environmental rights in their supply chains more strongly in the future. Nevertheless, due to their high export rate, many Austrian SMEs are indirectly confronted with – sometimes even several – supply chain regulations of other countries. But supply chain responsibility does not only bring disadvantages. For apart from reputational gains, the cultivation of stakeholder relationships for knowledge transfer as well as the evaluations and optimizations made possible by more comprehensive risk analyses also create strategic advantages for Austrian SMEs.
Further information on the supply chain study: https://www.fh-wien.ac.at/en/news/corporate-responsibility-as-a-strategic-advantage-for-domestic-smes/