Digital Infrastructures of Sustainability Regulation (DigiChain) 

The adoption of the landmark EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is the latest evidence of a turn to ‘due diligence’ as a central pillar of EU sustainability regulation. It requires large companies to identify, prevent and mitigate sustainability risks across their value chains. The DigiChain project illustrates that the practice of due diligence especially under the CSDDD will be digital, in the sense that companies and regulators use digital technologies, foremost AI-driven, to reach and evaluate compliance with the new rules.

The project explores interconnections between regulatory and technological developments, identifies the features of these emerging ‘techno-legalities’ and how they are assembled into a new governance regime for the global economy. Towards this, the project team (1.) maps existing technological tools and relates them to the different stages of the due diligence process, (2.) examines how the data input, evaluation and presentation underlying leading tools allows compliance with the EU CSDDD, and (3.) draws initial recommendations to regulators and business on the use of digital due diligence tools.

Project Team:

The project brings together scholars with a background in law, economics and business, as well as informatics for an integrated analysis of digitalized due diligence and value chain governance.  

• Robert Bwana, Business School
• Antoine Duval, Law
• Klaas Eller, Law (co-PI)
• Debraj Roy, Informatics Institute
• Michelle Westermann-Behaylo, Business School (co-PI)

Learn more about the DigiChain project here.