OECD Responsible Business Outlook 2026

Responsible business conduct (RBC) aligns the activities of businesses and investors with the needs of society, today and in the future. RBC is especially important in this moment of profound economic, technological, geopolitical, and climate‑related transitions.

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (MNE Guidelines) are the leading international standard for RBC. They set out expectations for businesses to conduct due diligence to assess and address adverse impacts on people, the environment and society associated with their operations, their products and services, including across their supply chains. This report assesses the practices of the 10 000 largest companies listed on global stock markets against the OECD due diligence framework. It also explores how the 52 governments that adhere to the MNE Guidelines are promoting RBC through public policies.

Sixty-nine per cent of large listed companies have public commitments on at least one issue relating to RBC and over one‑third (36%) have cross-cutting RBC commitments covering a range of topics. Commitments related to corruption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are most common, followed by forced labour, child labour and human rights. Less than half of large listed companies disclose commitments to freedom of association and only a quarter to biodiversity.

Overall, companies tend to report more extensively on their policies and management systems (45% as a share of all practices considered in this report) than other aspects of due diligence – particularly measures to address their impacts (less than 20%).

Reported uptake of measures to identify and address impacts tends to be low particularly in relation to impacts that may arise in companies’ supply chains. For example, while roughly half of companies report having social or environmental criteria for selecting their suppliers, fewer than 20% report evaluating supplier risk according to such criteria. A quarter of companies report providing training or collaborating with suppliers to improve their performance on environmental and social issues. Fewer than one in ten companies (7%) report integrating their social supply chain policy into their purchasing practices. Fewer than one in 20 companies disclose improvements for workplace health and safety in their supply chain.

Due diligence uptake is particularly limited in relation to stakeholder engagement and remediation related to human rights issues. Globally, 8% of large listed companies report engaging stakeholders on human rights issues. Just under one‑fifth (17%) report having a formal grievance mechanism on human rights, while 10% commit to providing remedy to people affected by human rights impacts related to the company’s activities.

Reported uptake of due diligence varies significantly across geographies. On average, reporting on due diligence is more comprehensive in Europe, Developed Asia‑Pacific and Latin America, and least comprehensive in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter ‘China’), the Middle East and Africa.

The share of companies reporting that they have a significant negative impact on a given issue exceeds the share of companies that identify that issue as posing a material financial risk for the company, in non-financial sector disclosures published under the EU’s European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). This is the case across all but one of the ten sustainability topics covered, and the gap is particularly pronounced for workers in the value chain, water and marine resources, and the circular economy. This gap may reflect challenges related to assessment and reporting of risks and impacts but may also reflect a real or perceived lack of incentives to address certain impacts.

At the same time, companies face concrete barriers to implementation, including limited visibility and leverage over upstream suppliers. In a sub-sample of around 450 large listed companies, around 70% report that their social audit programmes cover tier‑1 suppliers, while around 35% cover tier‑2 or tier-3 suppliers. This can mean companies have less visibility on their most significant risks and impacts, which are often located upstream. Companies report obstacles to collecting, verifying or transferring information about suppliers, workers or operations due to capacity constraints but also restrictions related to data protection, national security, or limitations on audits and on‑the‑ground engagement.

Legal and practical barriers may also impact reporting on outcomes of due diligence. Only 7% of large listed companies disclose salient human rights issues and only 6% disclose the outcomes of their supplier monitoring process. This may reflect challenges associated with measuring outcomes and communicating on human rights impacts, which are often context-specific and may involve heightened reputational or liability risks, which can discourage more granular disclosure even where underlying due diligence activities exist.

Eighty-four per cent of OECD Member countries, and 67% of countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines, as well as a number of non-adhering countries, have introduced due diligence-related regulation. This includes legislation related to sustainability reporting, due diligence conduct, and product or market‑based measures. While many of these measures share similar core objectives and features, businesses have reported implementation challenges due to a lack of alignment in scope, design and terminology. OECD Member countries with due diligence-related requirements in place represent approximately 55% of global GDP.

Governments are integrating RBC into trade and investment agreements. Since 2020, 67 (36%) of the 186 trade and investment agreements signed by countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines include an RBC clause. Of these 67 agreements, 73% were signed with non‑adhering countries. However, knowledge about the implementation and impact of these provisions is lacking.

Governments are promoting RBC in their role as economic actors and in their commercial activities. Thirty-two countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines report that their public procurement frameworks consider RBC. In 2024, over USD 8 trillion in public procurement spending (accounting for approximately 80% of public procurement spending across adherent countries) was by countries where mandatory due diligence measures apply to public bodies either explicitly or implicitly.

Large listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) tend to report higher uptake of due diligence practices than non‑SOEs headquartered within the same region, though large listed SOEs are concentrated in regions with lower reported due diligence uptake overall (China, Middle East and Africa). Thirty-six countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines have established and disclosed expectations for their SOEs to observe RBC principles and standards.

Twenty-nine of 52 countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines note that they use incentives to promote implementation of RBC standards by businesses. Incentives can vary significantly, for example, preferential terms for grants, loans or other financial support based on RBC performance; tax credits or benefits; incentives linked to permitting, licensing, company registration, other administrative processes; trade and investment facilitation services and government-backed trademarks or labels.

Governments are taking action to facilitate access to judicial remedies for harms related to corporate misconduct. All countries adhering to the MNE Guidelines provide state‑based grievance mechanisms on RBC. Thirty-six countries have taken at least one measure to address access barriers to judicial remedy. Direct or indirect expectations to provide remedy or to establish a grievance mechanism are present in about half of the due diligence legislation introduced across adherent countries. This is particularly relevant considering the limited reported due diligence uptake related to remediation mentioned above.