JARGONFREE Compass for Sustainable Contracting

Module III. Why contracts fail

This Module focuses on how contracts support – or hinder – the implementation of sustainability-related goals and requirements. It is designed as a diagnostic tool. Rather than teaching you how to draft contracts, it helps you identify issues in existing contracts and related documents that could undermine your sustainability objectives.

Identify and trace sustainability commitments and requirements

Start from a sustainability topic - such as environmental and human rights due diligence, emissions reduction, conflict minerals, forced labour, supplier audits, traceability, or health and safety – and identify the relevant requirements or commitments across the contract stack, including where they are missing or not explicitly addressed. Then assess whether and where they can be found, whether they are recognised as relevant and understood, and capable of supporting and guiding action.

Assess how commitments and requirements work in practice

Use the problem patterns to assess how sustainability-related requirements and commitments function across documents, roles, and the situations where decisions are made and actions taken – from product requirements and operational processes to supply chain relationships. If they cannot be found, recognised as relevant, understood, or acted upon, they are unlikely to guide behaviour and support implementation.

The problems introduced in this Module can be grouped into a set of underlying root causes: requirements or commitments may be

This Module helps you diagnose recurring problem patterns that may prevent sustainability-related commitments and requirements from supporting implementation. Module IV provides practical ways for addressing these challenges. Together, the problem-solution pairs in these Modules form an implementation pathway that moves from sustainability-related contract content as “words on paper” towards real-world action and embedded organisational practice. The pathway progresses from issues related to relevance, structure, and communication towards feasibility, ownership, implementation, and embedding in day-to-day work. It also addresses how commitments and requirements are expressed, communicated, and understood, which affects whether they can support and guide action.

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