In complex supply chains, it’s not enough to ensure your direct suppliers follow your standards. The real challenge lies further down the chain - among the sub-suppliers you may never meet, but whose practices directly affect your business, reputation, and compliance.
That’s why Orixe enables companies to cascade audits and standards down the supply chain from direct suppliers to their suppliers and beyond. It’s a smart way to drive accountability and integrity throughout the network, without compromising supplier privacy.
With cascading audits, you don’t have to manually trace every actor in your supply chain. Your direct suppliers can forward the same audit to their own suppliers - ensuring your Code of Conduct, ESG criteria, or other requirements reach lower tiers.
While you won’t see the names or answers of sub-suppliers (to protect privacy), you’ll still know how far your audit has reached and how many have filled it out - giving you confidence that standards are being enforced beyond your immediate partners.
Even without full visibility into individual responses from lower-tier suppliers, cascading demands helps identify compliance gaps and weak links. For example, if audits aren't being forwarded or completed further down, it’s a red flag. This helps you take proactive steps to engage with your direct suppliers, mitigate risks, and protect your business from reputational or legal fallout.
New regulations like the EU’s CSRD and CSDDD require businesses to demonstrate responsibility across the entire supply chain. Cascading audits make this easier. You’ll gather verified data from direct suppliers and be able to prove that similar standards are being enforced at deeper levels - even without seeing every detail. It’s a practical way to stay compliant while respecting supplier confidentiality.
Click here to find out more about Orixe flow down audit.
As supply chains grow more complex, the need for transparency, ethical standards, and sustainability becomes more urgent. Cascading down your demands from direct suppliers to sub-suppliers is not just a best practice, it's becoming an industry necessity.
By creating a ripple effect of compliance, businesses can help ensure that every part of their supply chain, even the parts they don’t see, align with shared values and expectations. It’s a practical, respectful, and future-focused way to manage risk and build trust in an increasingly connected world.