Commentary Ch. II Paragraph 16

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.12 and A.13. 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. An enterprise’s relationship to adverse impact is not static. It may change, for example as situations evolve and depending upon the degree to which due diligence and steps taken to address identified risks and impacts decrease the risk of the impacts occurring.