WhiteBox Grievance and Complaints Mechanism
for Companies

WhiteBox Grievance Mechanism for Companies

Receive reports on human rights risks and violations in supply chains directly from affected stakeholders
WhiteBox for Companies

Grievance Mechanism for Supply Chain Due Diligence

WhiteBox is a grievance and tip reporting portal that empowers value-chain stakeholders to report incidents of sustainability violations, human rights abuses, crimes, and other unethical business practices. Increasingly, companies around the world are put under the responsibility to ensure that their supply chain is transparent, accountable, and ethical, and WhiteBox can help them meet this responsibility. Our platform is designed to be secure, user-friendly and accessible, enabling your value-chain stakeholders to report incidents of misconduct easily and safely without fear of retaliation. By using WhiteBox, you can build a more sustainable and responsible business that is committed to promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical behaviour in the supply chain.

Why are grievance & tip mechanisms so important?

Important pillars for effective risk management and due diligence processes

Early Warning System

Effective complaints, grievance and whistleblowing mechanisms act as early warning systems by identifying problems before they escalate. This helps you prevent or limit damage to your business in the form of damage payments, fines, or reputation.

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Risk Analysis & Auditing

Grievance and tip portals can be a highly effective and efficient tool to analyse risks along your value-chain. Furthermore, they offer companies the opportunity to obtain feedback on the effectiveness of their risk management and individual due diligence processes. Therefore they also form an important building block for the further development of risk management systems.

Fraud Detection & Deterrence

In 2022, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners reported that 42% of occupational fraud was detected through whistleblower reports. Effective whistleblower channels can also deter malicious actors out of fear of being reported and caught.

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Compliance

Compliance with the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), EU CSDDD, and EU Whistleblower Directive

Complaint (or grievance) procedures are a core element of many supply chain due diligence regulations including the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Companies must have a complaints procedure through which internal and external persons can notify the company of human rights or environmental risks or violations in their own business operations as well as those of every direct and indirect supplier in the supply chain.

Compliance made simple with WhiteBox

WhiteBox is developed for full compliance with:

  • German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG)
  • EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (EU CSDDD)
  • EU Directive for Whistleblower Protection
How to

Turn-key compliance in 6 steps with WhiteBox!

Companies using WhiteBox can reach full compliance with grievance mechanism obligations contained in supply chain due diligence regulations in 6 steps which are completed within minutes and without any extra expertise needed!

Set up within minutes

Ready procedures accompanied by reporting forms and policies (provided as templates) as well as an intuitive interface ensure quick and easy implementation

No expertise required

WhiteBox guides you to compliance and simplifies the establishment of grievance mechanisms. For extra help our network of consultants are always available.

Full-Suite accompanying services


WhiteBox, together with its partners, is able to offer companies a full-suite and best-in-class service globally for the set-up as well as on-going management of grievance mechanisms. These services digitally integrate directly into the platform for maximum convenience.
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Consultation for setting up of a procedure & drafting of the policies

Get full-suite consultation from domain experts with decades of experience

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Education & training for staff capacity building

Train procedure administrators and managing staff on their obligations and best practices

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Education & training for stakeholder awareness

Educate stakeholders on their rights and how they can use the procedure effectively and appropriately

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On-going services for management of procedure

  • Ombudsperson services,
  • On-demand translations,
  • Consultation,
  • Legal Assessments,
  • and more ...

Book a demo ...

Get in touch with us!

    Accessibility

    In the realm of grievance mechanisms for supply chains, accessibility is paramount. The holistic approach WhiteBox adopts toward accessibility ensures that all stakeholders, regardless of their location, background, skills, and knowledge, can effectively use the grievance mechanism.
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    Awareness & Outreach

    Whether it's through online campaigns, community workshops, or NGO partnerships, WhiteBox actively seeks to educate and engage to keep stakeholders well-informed about their rights and the grievance procedure.

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    User Friendliness

    Prioritizing user experience, WhiteBox boasts an intuitive design, ease of navigation, as well as simple and straightforward procedures; making the process of lodging grievances as straightforward as possible. For any issues, support documentation and ticketing is available.

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    Participation of illiterate stakeholders

    WhiteBox enables illiterate stakeholders to participate through audio aided forms and AI powered speech to text transcription. Furthermore, our portal can be extended with additional channels such as AI powered telephone hotlines.

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    Bridging language barriers

    Language barriers are eliminated with WhiteBox. The form and portal are available in almost all languages of the world. The report and any proceeding communication are also translated into any language (click here for more information on the translation features for administrators).
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    Add-On Channels

    WhiteBox enables the integration of external channels and manual entry of reports for others by persons such as HR representatives, ombudspersons, or auditors. It can easily be extended with additional reporting channels such as:
    • E-Mail Addresses,
    • Human operated telephone hotlines,
    • AI/Robot operated telephone hotlines, and
    • Other digital reporting channels.

      Efficient & Effective Grievance Management

      Organise | Automate | Streamline | Monitor

      Utilise WhiteBox to effortlessly manage received reports on human rights and sustainability risks or violations. With WhiteBox, your company receives all relevant grievances from its supply-chain and enables your staff to handle these complaint reports effectively and efficiently.

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      Identification of ESG Risks

      WhiteBox automatically categorizes reports and identifies relevant ESG Risks

      While stakeholders manually enter ESG risks when creating a report, an anonymized version is analyzed by Artificial Intelligence to validate accuracy and identify any missing risks. This process ensures data integrity, enabling smoother automation, efficient processing, and reliable statistical insights.

      "Out of Scope" Flagging

      Flagging system for complaints which are not spam but out of HREDD scope

      An anonymized version of the report is automatically analyzed to assess whether the complaint falls within the scope of European Supply Chain Due Diligence regulations. Reports marked as "Out of Scope" are flagged but remain accessible for processing at the discretion of administrators.

      Responsibility Delegation

      Automatic delegation of main responsibility and procedure leadership

      WhiteBox automatically delegates the main responsibility of the procedure to the company that is the closest to the issue and the largest purchaser in the affected supply-chain. All other companies can still collaborate and take their own actions in response to reports.

      Stakeholder Updates

      Automatically update stakeholders with information on the progress of the procedure

      As your grievance administration team focuses on their core responsibilities, WhiteBox seamlessly updates stakeholders on the procedure's status and progress. By automatically reflecting your team's actions and inputs to manage the report, the platform ensures transparency and builds trust throughout the process.

      Set & Track Actions

      Manage responses together with stakeholders and involved companies

      Let your administrators set actions in response to received grievances on the platform to track their effectiveness. The effectiveness is assessed in combination with feedback from the reporting stakeholder and leaves you with valuable data and insights for the future.

      Build an Action Database

      Utilise insights from past cases to solve grievances effectively

      As your team addresses grievances, the actions taken and corresponding data—such as effectiveness ratings from your administrators and feedback from stakeholders—are meticulously recorded in WhiteBox. This ensures that every resolution not only improves future problem-solving efficiency but also contributes to ongoing refinement of your processes.

      Translations

      Automated translations expanded with human capabilities where necessary

      Get automatic translations from- and to- over 100 languages directly integrated into WhiteBox. Where this is not enough, human translation services can be integrated seamlessly into the procedure ensuring confidentiality and efficiency.

      Effectively Supervise

      Easily enforce deadlines and supervise progress of reports

      Set company wide procedural deadlines and let WhiteBox track statuses to notify administrators of approaching deadlines. Easily follow how many reports have been in which status for how long, and more.

      Track Issues

      Group reports in issues to track developments

      Administrators can create and manage issues or topics under which reports can be grouped to track developments on a certain issue. The system will automatically suggest matching reports to add to the issue as they come in.

      Archive

      Keep an organised archive for end of year reporting and more

      The reports and their accompanying data are archived after the end of each procedure and can be retrieved on the platform for 2 years. Reports and their statistics are available in an organized and data privacy compliant download ready format for further data processing and end-of-year-reporting.

      Assign & Exclude

      Assign and exclude administrators to and from reports

      Administrators may assign single reports to specific administrators or exclude administrators from specific reports. This feature further aids confidentiality, data segregation, and effective inner-organisational management of the mechanism.

      Set Departments

      Effective teamwork and data segregation

      Create departments to group your organisations administrators on WhiteBox, enforce data segregation and confidentiality, as well as automate the assignment of incoming reports based on a detailed defined responsibility scope.

      Streamline Procedure

      Effective, simple and organised handling of reports

      WhiteBox features a user friendly and intuitive dashboard making the management of grievances as easy as possible for administrators. Administrators are digitally guided into standardised and structured procedures ensuring compliant and effective handling of reports with minimal effort.

      Spam Management

      Automated and meticulous anti-spam management system

      The integrated anti spam management system meticulously sorts out spam. The first machine learning algorithm automatically prevents bot submissions. The second one checks every report for spam and returns information such as a spam scores. Obvious spam gets sorted out automatically, suspicious reports get flagged and presented for additional review.

        How WhiteBox leverages Artificial Intelligence


        WhiteBox leverages cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence technology to enhance accessibility, streamline grievance management, and improve procedural efficiency for all stakeholders. We are deeply committed to the value these services bring, while also remaining vigilant about the associated risks, particularly around data confidentiality. Protecting both personal and corporate data is a top priority, and we implement robust confidentiality measures to ensure it. Additionally, we empower both reporting rights-holders and companies with flexible options, allowing them to choose the extent to which they wish to integrate AI services into their processes. Click below to learn more about our AI strategy.
        WhiteBox AI Strategy

        Transcription of Spoken Information Increasing Accessibility for Illiterate Stakeholders

        We increase accessibility to the procedure for illiterate rightsholders through an industry leading transcription service called "Whisper" provided by OpenAI.

        Instant High-Quality Translation between over 100 Languages

        We bridge language barriers with instant translations from- and to- over 100 languages (powered by DeepL for 30 supported languages and Amazon Translate for another 70). Where automation falls short, human translation services can be integrated directly into the platform ensuring confidentiality and efficiency.

        Fast and Accurate Anonymisation of Reports for Confidential Further Processing and Collaboration in the Supply Chain

        We use Amazon Comprehends natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to identify and redact personal and corporate identifying information to ensure confidentiality across our systems.

        Automated Identification of ESG Risks and Flagging of "Out-of-Scope" Reports.

        After the reports are translated into English and redacted from any personal or company identifying information, they are analysed by various Large Language Models including those provided by the organisations OpenAI and Anthropic.

        Integrated Service Providers

        WhiteBox facilitates seamless integration for consultants, offering comprehensive support ranging from policy drafting to ongoing management of the grievance procedure. With their own accounts, consultants can easily assimilate into their clients' systems, thanks to WhiteBox's modular access management capabilities. This feature ensures that consultants can provide tailored, efficient assistance in every aspect of the grievance process, enhancing the overall effectiveness and compliance of your procedures.

        Legal Assesments

        Mediation Services

        Ombudsperson Services

        Translation Services

        Auditing Services

        & More

        Certified Services

        Professional grievance and whistleblowing management services by trained staff of certified firms around the world

        Select firms with regional expertise to support your compliance department

        Full-suite set up and management services for your WhiteBox and additional grievance mechanisms

        Highly qualified consulting services for grievance and whistleblowing procedures


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        Seamless Integration With Your Supply Chain

        WhiteBox stands out as the sole solution in the market, facilitating seamless integration of both direct and indirect suppliers into your grievance mechanism.

        Both the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act mandate that companies ensure their grievance procedures are readily accessible to all potentially affected individuals throughout their entire supply chain. However this can be a complex endeavor, particularly in large and global supply chains. The challenge intensifies when trying to engage with stakeholders of indirect suppliers. WhiteBox simplifies compliance and enables buying companies to receive grievances from their supply chain while empowering supplying companies with equal transparency and control over the procedures concerning them.

        Effortlessly implemented along your entire value-chain

        WhiteBox facilitates the transmission of grievance reports from your own operations as well as your entire supply chain to you. Affected stakeholders only need to identify the company and worksite impacting them, while you simply need to know your direct suppliers.

        Protecting important information of your company 

        WhiteBox enables collaboration and transparency for the supply chain grievance mechanism while keeping identifying data regarding suppliers and customers of your company hidden to unauthorised third parties (including the reporting individual) with advanced digital anonymisation technology.

        Automatically delegated main responsibility

        WhiteBox automatically delegates the main responsibility for the procedure based on the requirements of the laws and factors influencing the ability to respond to the issue most effectively.

        Enabling suppliers to quickly address and refute any defamatory claims

        WhiteBox enables suppliers to protect their reputation by tracking and responding to any defamatory claims disguised as grievances.

        Collaboration & Communication

        WhiteBox enables collaboration and communication with customers, suppliers and stakeholders across your value-chain

        Collaboration is essential for effective supply chain due diligence, yet it remains a significant challenge within the context of complex, global supply chains. WhiteBox addresses this challenge by facilitating seamless, structured grievance-based collaboration among companies, their business customers, direct and indirect suppliers, reporting stakeholders, and NGOs. Simultaneously, it safeguards the integrity of sensitive data and business secrets for all parties involved through automated anonymization when necessary, ensuring both transparency and confidentiality.

        Receive feedback from stakeholders on effectiveness of individual due diligence processes

        Stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the actions implemented before a report is finalized. Additionally, they can offer insights on the overall effectiveness of the procedure, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with best practices.

        Communicate with reporting stakeholders even when they remain anonymous

        WhiteBox enables investigations to be conducted and feedback to be collected even in the absence of identifying (contact) information of the stakeholder.

        Collaborate with involved organisations even when they remain anonymous

        To facilitate seamless collaboration across the supply chain without compromising data confidentiality, WhiteBox protects your company’s customer and supplier data, ensuring it remains secure and is never shared with unauthorized third parties during collaboration within the supply chain.

        Statistics & Analysis

        WhiteBox provides a comprehensive solution for automating the collection and analysis of data from received reports and feedback

        Both the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act mandate companies to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of their complaint procedures and conduct thorough risk analyses. WhiteBox streamlines this by automatically collecting data from received reports and associated feedback loops. This empowers your organization to enhance risk analysis capabilities and continuously review the effectiveness of your complaint procedure ass well as other due diligence processes. By automating the collection and statistical analysis of grievances, WhiteBox not only provides a robust foundation for evaluating the effectiveness of your mechanisms over a period of time. It also enables the identification of evolving risk trends, high-risk worksites, suppliers, regions, and sectors, ensuring your risk analyses are both proactive and comprehensive.

        Automatic collection of statistics

        Automatically collect a comprehensive set of structured data associated with incoming reports and the procedures

        Identify high-risk links

        Identify high-risk sectors, regions, suppliers and your own worksites with the help of data

        Analyse and discover trends

        Display and monitor collected statistics in a variety of detailed graphs and charts

        Export anonymised data

        Easily export anonymised data in .csv for compliant use and import to external analytics programs

        Documentation & Reporting

        WhiteBox simplifies compliance by automating the documentation of the procedure and relevant reporting

        Companies are required to continuously document as well as publicly report on aspects of their complaints procedure. Meeting these obligations can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. WhiteBox streamlines this process by automatically documenting all relevant information and metrics related to your grievance mechanism. With WhiteBox, you can easily access and retrieve the data needed to create comprehensive annual reports in full compliance with relevant obligations.

        Automatic documentation & comprehensive archive keeping

        WhiteBox enables automatic documentation of your grievance mechanism and creates a detailed archive for audit, reporting, and analysis purposes

        Documentation of individual due diligence actions

        Every action taken in response to a complaint (grievance) is recorded in your company own database together with feedback and effectiveness rating given by both your administrators as well as the reporting stakeholder

        Streamlined creation of complaints mechanisms related sections in your HREDD & ESG Reports

        The collection of information and creation of text required for ESG & Due Diligence reporting is automated and can be downloaded in a structured format with the click of a button

        Data Security & Compliance

        Compliance with data protection regulations and security best practices guard the integrity of data in the WhiteBox system
        By integrating rigorous data protection measures, including compliance with EU GDPR, BDSG (Germany), KVKK (Turkey), and other international regulations, WhiteBox provides a robust framework that supports the secure exchange of information throughout the supply chain. This ensures that every entity involved in the grievance procedure can confidently collaborate while maintaining full compliance with relevant data protection laws.
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        Detailed Permission Management

        WhiteBox comes with highly modular permission management features for co-administrators

        Account Security

        Mandatory high security passwords and optional two factor authentication for login and other critical functions

        IT Security

        Utilising best practices in IT infrastructure security (click here for more information).

        Data anonymisation

        Automatic data anonymisation for compliant further processing

        Integration with Compliance- and
        Risk Management Software

        & other customisations

        Integrate our platform seamlessly with any compliance and risk management software. For more details and to begin the integration process, please reach out to us.

        Customisations, Extensions & Integrations

        Customized and tailor-made solutions by our team of experts in law and technology ensure that our platform meets your company's specific requirements. Some suggestions can even be added by our team at no extra cost for you.

        Customize any aspect of WhiteBox

        Connect WhiteBox with other software

        Extend WhiteBox with additional channels

        Create new solutions


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        Pricing

        Base Plans

        The base plans contain all required features for the implementation of an effective and compliant grievance mechanism along your value chain.

        For Responsible Suppliers & Businesses

        This pricing plan is applicable for companies who are not directly obligated to implement a complaints procedure but supply an obligated company or voluntarily want to implement a mechanism

        Tier 1

        up to 49 employees

        € 9
        /month

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Unlimited reports

        Free policy template

        Up to 3 administrators

        30-Day money back guarantee

        Tier 2

        more than 50 employees

        € 45
        /month

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Unlimited reports

        Free policy template

        Up to 5 administrators

        60-Day money back guarantee

        Tier 3

        more than 250 employees

        € 225
        /month

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Unlimited reports

        Free policy template

        Up to 10 administrators

        90-Day money back guarantee

        Get Started

        For Industry Leaders & ESG Pioneers

        This pricing plan applies to companies that are directly obligated by regulations to implement a grievance or complaints procedure or that are above the employee thresholds

        Tier 4

        more than 1000 employees

        € 500
        /month

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Unlimited reports

        Statistics add-on

        Up to 25 administrators

        Tier 5

        more than 3000 employees

        € 1200
        /month

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Unlimited reports

        Statistics add-on

        Up to 50 administrators

        Tier 6

        more than 5000 employees

        custom
        please contact us
        Contact us
        Get Started

        Add-Ons

        Enhance your compliance with our add-on services
        starting at
        € 9
        /mo

        excluding VAT, billed yearly

        Whistleblower

        Can be purchased independently

        Receive whistleblower reports from a separate channel only accessible by relevant parties

        Separate whistleblowing channel & dashboard

        Connectable to WhiteBox dashboard

        Compliant with EU Whistleblowing Directive and ISO 37002:2021

        Additional data security (incl. extra encryption)

        Accessible through Tor-Browser (Onion Link)

        Flexible hosting options (incl. on-premise)


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        € 50
        /mo

        excluding VAT

        Statistics

        View and analyse statistics in relation to receieved reports to better identify trends, issues, and more

        Activates statistics functionality & dashboard

        Automatically collect all kinds of statistics in relation to reports

        Chart all kinds of statistics in relation to filed reports

        Ability to export statistics in different formats


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        WhiteBox for Companies

        Watch our video for more information.
        Frequently Asked Questions
        Common questions about grievances and supply chain due diligence answered

        resources for companies

        Information about grievance mechanisms for companies

        Here you can find a range of resources to help promote responsible business practices and comply with relevant laws and regulations. Our resources include policies and guides related to the WhiteBox platform, as well as information on relevant legislation and best practices for ethical supply chain management. We also offer a regularly updated blog section that features articles and insights on the latest trends and challenges in sustainable business practices.
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