Commentary Ch. II Paragraph 14

For the purposes of the Guidelines, due diligence is understood as the process through which enterprises can identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their actual and potential adverse impacts as an integral part of business decision-making and risk management systems. Due diligence can be included within broader enterprise risk management systems, provided that it goes beyond simply identifying and managing material risks to the enterprise itself, to include the risks of adverse impacts related to matters covered by the Guidelines. Potential impacts are to be addressed through prevention or mitigation, while actual impacts are to be addressed through remediation. The Guidelines concern those adverse impacts that are either caused or contributed to by the enterprise, or are directly linked to their operations, products or services by a business relationship, as described in paragraphs A.11 and A.12. Due diligence can help enterprises avoid the risk of such adverse impacts. For the purposes of this recommendation, ‘contributing to’ an adverse impact should be interpreted as a substantial contribution, meaning an activity that causes, facilitates or incentivises another entity to cause an adverse impact and does not include minor or trivial contributions. The term ‘business relationship’ includes relationships with business partners, entities in the supply chain and any other non-State or State entities directly linked to its business operations, products or services. The recommendation in paragraph A.10 applies to those matters covered by the Guidelines that are related to adverse impacts. It does not apply to the chapters on Science and Technology, Competition and Taxation.