The Responsible Contracting Project
RCP’s mission is to drive better outcomes for people and the planet through better, more Responsible Contracts.
Responsible Contracts commit both parties—buyers and suppliers—to each do their part to uphold human rights and environmental standards and work together to address problems that arise.
Core Principles of Responsible Contracting
RCP promotes contracts as a key tool for upholding human rights and environmental standards through a shared-responsibility approach—where contracts commit both buyers (e.g., brands and retailers) and suppliers (e.g., farms and factories) to fulfill their individual responsibilities and cooperate to prevent and address harms. Responsible Contracts follow four core principles, known as the “4Rs:"
1) Responsibility for human rights and the environment is shared
2) Responsible purchasing practices
3) Remediation first
4) Responsible exit as a last resort
The RCP Toolkit
The Toolkit contains practical and versatile tools that companies can use to improve the human rights and environmental performance of their contracts and, by extension, their supply chains.
Events
RCP Director Sarah Dadush joined the Sourcing Journal Sustainability Summit in New York City on April 23, speaking on responsible purchasing as a sustainability strategy in the session “Contracting for Change,” alongside Karen Stauss of Transparentem and Jasmin Malik Chua of Sourcing Journal.
Photo credit: Allison Joseph/@shotsbyalliej)
News
Implementation
In August 2026, RCP submitted its response to the European Commission's public consultation on CSDDD implementation guidelines, calling for shared responsibility in contractual clauses and human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) throughout CSDDD implementation. The submission addresses buyer-supplier cooperation, responsible purchasing practices, and model contractual clauses.
Tools
In July 2026, RCP published Responsible Contracts in the Cobalt Industry, developed with support from the Cobalt Institute. The Paper addresses the sector's "war of the codes" — overlapping, uncoordinated due diligence schemes — with a three-step framework for reviewing contracts against RCP's shared-responsibility principles.
Tools
In April 2026, RCP launched its latest tool: The Responsible Contracting in Spice Supply Chains Guidance
serves as a practical guide for spice-sector companies in aligning commercial contracts and business relationships with the UNGPs, and was developed in collaboration with the Sustainable Spice Initiative (SSI).
Latest News
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May 1 — RCP published a new analysis of the CSDDD and contracting in light of Omnibus I on the Oxford Business Law Blog: Moving Toward Shared Responsibility: How the EU’s CSDDD and Omnibus I Reimagine Contracting for Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence. Also available as a PDF.
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April 27 — RCP Director Sarah Dadush and Senior Advisor John Sherman co-authored an essay for Shift's series marking the 15th anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), titled, From Social Norm to Legal Practice: Fifteen Years of Integrating the UNGPs into Business Law.
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April 16 — RCP Director Sarah Dadush penned an op-ed in Sourcing Journal arguing responsible contracting is the antidote to supply chain uncertainty: Latest Tariff Chaos Demands a Rethink of Supply Contracts. Also available as a PDF.
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April 9 — RCP has launched its latest tool, the Responsible Contracting in Spice Supply Chains Guidance, developed in collaboration with the Sustainable Spice Initiative (SSI).
Events
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June 2 — RCP Director Sarah Dadush facilitated "Contracting for Sustainability," a workshop at the 2026 Annual Conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing, co-organized by NYU School of Law's Grunin Center and the Impact Investing Legal Working Group, drawing over 40 participants.
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May 19 — Senior Advisor Ben Rutledge spoke at the Sustainable Vanilla Initiative (SVI) General Assembly in Paris, joining industry members and value chain actors for a session on governance, procurement, and collective action in the vanilla sector.
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May 14 — Senior Advisor Ben Rutledge presented RCP's Responsible Contracting in Spice Supply Chains Guidance at the Sustainable Spices Initiative (SSI) General Assembly 2026 in Murcia, Spain, attended by nearly 100 delegates from around 50 organizations.
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May 8 — Senior Advisor Ben Rutledge participated in "From Transposition to Transformation: Designing and Enforcing Effective National HREDD Laws," a policymaker workshop co-organized by NOVA BHRE, BIICL, HIVA/KU Leuven, UNDP, Global Rights Compliance, and Westfälische Hochschule at NOVA School of Law in Lisbon.
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April 23 — RCP Director Sarah Dadush spoke on purchasing practices at Sourcing Journal's SJ Sustainability summit, Road to 2030: Dealing With Detours.
In Collaboration with
