Transparency or Opacity? An analysis of Luxury Firms’ responses to seven years of Devoir de Vigilance mandatory sustainability risk reporting

Purpose
This paper focuses on analysing luxury fashion firms reporting responses to the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance law, as a lens through which to assess the comprehensiveness of reporting related to mandatory disclosures. The Devoir De Vigilance law is relevant as it was one of the first legislative moves to link supply chain risks and environmental and social sustainability.

Design/Methodology/Approach
A secondary data content analysis of seven years of reporting by five luxury goods brands is conducted using the legislative reporting requirements of mapping, assessing, preventative actions, alert mechanisms, and monitoring schemes as an analytical framework.

Findings
There is basic technical compliance to the provision of mandated reporting, but reports are far from comprehensive as evidence is provided of undefined concepts, vague terminology, and the variability of audit and risk management tools applied. These shortcomings result in a lack of comprehensive and specific reporting on human rights and environmental risks in these supply chains, despite the raw materials used being well-documented for human rights abuses and other ethical and environmental issues.

Originality
There has been increasing interest in responses to mandated reporting in supply chains. The luxury goods context, the assessment within mandatory rather than voluntary reporting, and a focus on reporting content provides an original contemporary investigation of disclosures for sustainability risks within supply chains, through the lens of the mandated Devoir de Vigilance legislation in France.