Red Flag 3. Project timelines that undermine consultation with communities

Project timelines that undermine consultation with communities /

The business’s commercial success substantially depends upon construction or commencement of projects with timelines that do not allow sufficient time for consultation with groups affected by the projects.

For Example /
  • Extractives projects being planned and costed such that there is not adequate time for local communities to be consulted about potential negative impacts, nor for mitigations to be put in place.
  • Infrastructure projects, including renewable energy developments, that are “fast-tracked” or authorized and completed before local communities are able to express concerns, seek mitigation for negative impacts or secure appropriate benefit-sharing agreements.
  • Mega-events (sporting, exhibitions, fairs) that have tight timelines from project award to delivery of the event.
Higher-Risk Sectors /
  • Extractives – particularly mining and oil/gas
  • Construction – particularly large infrastructure projects, including linear infrastructure such as railways, highways, transmission lines, particularly in geographies that don’t require or actively discourage public consultation
  • Agriculture – particularly large-scale operations such as rubber or biofuel feedstocks
  • Energy utilities – particularly those that involve infrastructure such as wind or solar farms, hydroelectric dams, transmission lines and related infrastructure
  • Sporting bodies and sporting associations – particularly in the organization of mega-sporting events
  • Banks, private equity and development finance institutions that finance projects in the above categories and require a fast return on investment, incentivizing project teams to work within compressed schedules to reach key milestones and start generating revenue as quickly as possible.
Download Red Flag 3

Questions for Leaders /

  • To what extent are our project timelines able to accommodate engagement with groups impacted by the project?
  • How do we know we are identifying and engaging with the appropriate stakeholders?
  • Do we have sufficient understanding and internal capacity to engage with groups affected by the project?
  • How does the company ensure that potentially impacted communities have access to safe and effective ways to raise concerns with the company throughout the project lifecycle?

Understanding Risks
and Opportunities /

Research in the mining sector shows that often there is a tension between “technical time” – the time needed for the construction or completion of a project – and “social time” – the time needed to address community concerns related to the project.

Even when companies see the importance of consulting affected communities, their approaches are not always effective.

  • A survey of construction project managers shows that while they believe engagement with the local community improves relationships, they see it as a burdensome, arduous, time consuming and costly process.

  • A Chatham House report with perspectives from the extractives sector shows that even though setbacks from break-downs in community relations are costly, community engagement often fails because it is seen as a “distraction,” as a box-ticking exercise, or because community relations officers are marginalized or only involved when things go wrong.

  • Recent research suggests that while more companies are making commitments to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), implementation is still weak. Further, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples has commented that ongoing debates by corporations and governments about FPIC “lose sight of the spirit and character of these principles” which seek to end historical models of decision-making that have tended to exclude Indigenous Peoples.

  • In a 2024 book exploring the various facets of meaningful stakeholder engagement, the authors highlight that “several studies have found that the practice of stakeholder engagement has been characterized by processes that are often out of touch with the experiences of affected people whose daily lives intersect with the activities of industry.”

  • A 2019 study of Nigerian infrastructure projects highlights significant barriers to meaningful engagement, such as failure to understand stakeholders’ needs and expectations, late identification of stakeholders, failure to identify key stakeholders, failure to identify potential conflict areas, poor understanding of effective stakeholder engagement and timelines misaligned with stakeholders expectations.

Even companies or financial institutions that have policy commitments to community engagement can sometimes have business models that depend on project timelines which do not allow for sufficient time for consultation with affected stakeholders.

The low carbon transition is leading to a growth in business models that carry this risk. The urgency of the global climate challenge and the imperative of transitioning as quickly as possible to a lower carbon economy have, in certain cases, resulted in states and companies “fast-tracking” development of transition mining projects and/or low emissions energy projects. A 2022 study found that, in the case of energy transition minerals, not only is there a risk that procedural safeguards for consultation and consent will be diluted, but also that the future supply of energy transition minerals will exacerbate social inequalities in already vulnerable locations. For example, an estimated 54% of energy transition minerals are located on or near Indigenous Peoples’ land. An Amnesty International study looking at the impact of cobalt and copper mining expansions in the DRC found that many communities around the key mining locations have endured significant impacts as a result of energy transition mineral mining, including the absence of any community consultation and forced evictions. On the renewable energy front, several jurisdictions, including India, South Africa, and Japan, have adopted legislation intended to speed up project development. Unfortunately, such legislation often exempts project companies from or reduces requirements for prior consultations with communities and/or enables forced expropriation of land.

A business model focused on expedited timelines that don’t allow for sufficient consultations, can lead to the following risks to people:

  • Loss of Livelihood and Negative Health Impacts: In Mexico, Indigenous communities near a newly built dam in Sonora were not consulted or informed when the dam started to be filled. As the dam was filled, the communities reported they had not yet been relocated, that the dam had flooded areas where they used to access medicinal vegetation and that the project had cut road links to other communities. In Myanmar, opposition to the Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy river forced the government in 2011 to put the project on hold. The 3.6 billion USD dam was to be financed by China. The dam itself would displace thousands of people and affect fishermen and communities downstream. The reservoir was expected to flood an area the size of Singapore. Local communities reported losing their farmland, which was the source of their income. In addition, the dam would affect cultural rights, as the Myitsone area is believed to be the birthplace of the Kachin people. In recent years, fears that the project may be revived have sparked new protests.

  • Forced Displacement: In Brazil, residents of Vila Autódromo resisted displacement to clear land for construction of the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Although the majority of the residents had been offered compensation, others preferred not to leave their homes and felt the government’s plans to go ahead with construction amounted to forced eviction. In 2024, a French coalition of community associations issued a report asserting that nearly 20,000 people had been forcibly displaced from informal housing between April 2023 and September 2024 as part of preparations for the 2024 Paris summer games. Many of these people were migrants from places like Sudan, Eritrea or Afghanistan that had sought and were awarded asylum in France, but had precarious living arrangements. More generally, research shows that in the 20 years to 2007, approximately 2 million people in different countries were displaced by the Olympic Games. And this phenomenon is global – occurring in Chinese and Brazilian cities hosting sporting events, as well as European cities, such as Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. Non-sporting mega-events have also led to forced evictions and displacement: for example, 18,000 households were displaced in Shanghai, China, in preparation for the World Expo 2010 and early reports indicate that evictions are occurring around the site of World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. In Saudi Arabia, there have been reports of evictions of members of the Howeitat tribe from their homes and traditional lands to make way for the NEOM project, which describes itself as the world’s first cognitive, smart city.

  • Impacts on water availability and quality: In the US, the Standing Rock Sioux and other American Indian tribes raised concerns that the Dakota Access Pipeline could damage their water supply and cultural heritage. In 2020, a court ordered a temporary shutdown of the pipeline, finding that the environmental impact assessment had been inadequate.

  • Environmental Damage: The lack of consultation in the construction of a tourist train in Yucatán, Mexico raised concerns that the new towns that will be created along the line will put pressure on biodiversity and nature reserves which are managed by local communities.

  • Loss of Cultural Heritage: In Australia, the Wangan and Jagalingou community challenged the provision by Siemens of rail signaling to the Adani coalmine, stating that they had not provided approval for the project and the mine would cause environmental damage and limit their access to ancestral ceremonial grounds. In Cambodia, communities from Ratanakiri province filed complaints with the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman (CAO) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) related to the IFC’s investment in Vietnamese rubber company Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL). Local communities complained that HAGL’s use of its rubber land concessions had resulted in loss of forest and grazing land, destruction of burial grounds, and lack of access to resin trees and non-timber forest products necessary to sustain livelihoods. Moreover, communities reported that no effort was made by HAGL to obtained their free, prior informed consent, involve affected communities in the decision-making process, or provide adequate information to them. As of 2025, the case is still ongoing.

  • Violation of Indigenous Peoples Rights: It is important to highlight Indigenous Peoples as a vulnerable group among affected stakeholders. Failure to obtain FPIC can undermine Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination. It can also undermine their access to other rights such as to life, liberty, security, culture, language, spirituality, education, information, employment, etc. A 2023 study found that Indigenous Peoples are affected in at least 34% of all documented environmental conflicts worldwide. More than three-fourths of these conflicts are caused by mining, fossil fuels, dam projects, and the agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and livestock sector.

Business models that substantially depend on project timelines which do not allow for sufficient time for consultation with affected stakeholders can lead to the following risks to companies:

Financial, Legal and Reputational Risks:

  • A study digging into the Costs of Conflict for extractive companies identified two broad “cost” categories – costs associated with preventing or responding to conflict (e.g., security, risk management, personnel costs from time spent managing the conflict) and costs associated with the outcomes of conflict (e.g., project modifications, redress, material damage, lost productivity, impact on capital, reputational impact and impacts on personnel) and found that a major, world-class mining project can suffer costs of USD20M per week due to lost sales as a result of temporary shutdowns or delay stemming from community conflicts.

  • First Quantum Minerals was granted a 20-year extension to their copper mining concession in Panama on an expedited basis by the Panamanian government in 2023, allowing little or no time for consultation with affected stakeholders. In response, protests erupted across Panama, including blocking the port that serves the mine, effectively shuttering the mine site. Panama’s Supreme Court then declared the company’s contract unconstitutional and ordered the closure of the mine, which is estimated to cost USD800 million. Discussions around the ultimate fate of the mine are ongoing, but even if temporary, the economic cost of the lucrative mine’s shutdown for both FQM and the Government of Panama has been significant, including lost production and export income. FQM was reportedly spending USD11-13 million/month on labor and maintenance, with no permit to export any of the stockpiled material.

  • A 2021 study by ODI found that social risk mitigation cost about 2% of project costs versus potential financial damages of around 24-37% of project costs when projects failed to achieve social license to operate.

  • In 2024, after a 3-year-long legal dispute, a Parisian court ruled that a civil lawsuit brought by Mexico-based Indigenous communities against EDF can go ahead. The issues underpinning the lawsuit include violation of land rights and inadequate community consultation. The case was filed under the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law, designed to hold French companies accountable for abuses overseas.

  • Rapid decision-making that left no time for community consultation underpinned the 2020 destruction of the Juukan Gorge Indigenous cultural heritage site as part of Rio Tinto’s mining operations in Western Australia. The fall-out of this event included intense media scrutiny for Rio Tinto, the resignation of three members of the company’s senior leadership team and two board members, as well as a high-profile parliamentary inquiry. In 2022, the company settled for an undisclosed sum with the impacted Indigenous communities.

  • A 2020 study examined the cost and material losses experienced by ETP and other companies with an ownership stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which was subject to sustained opposition from Indigenous groups and characterized by widespread national and international protests. The owners lost revenue, operating costs and legal fees estimated at US$7.5 billion, in addition to material downward pressure on the company’s share price.

  • In early 2024, a US federal judge ordered the dismantling of Enel’s 84 turbine operating wind farm, as, according to the decision, the Oklahoma-based project did not undertake sufficient community consultation or respect the land rights of Indigenous Peoples in Oklahoma, US. This tear down is estimated to cost the company US$260 million, in addition to any damages awarded to the Osage Nation who challenged the wind farm.

  • In 2024, Indonesia’s highest court ruled in favor of a community’s petition to revoke the environmental permit for Dairi zinc-lead mine – a decision based partly on lack of citizen participation in the project’s development.

  • Recent disputes over hyperscale data centers in both the U.S. and UK illustrate the risks to business posed by expediting project development processes. In the US, a Virginia judge voided approval for the 1,700-acre “Digital Gateway” project after finding procedural failings in the approval process, following a “rushed” and divisive 27-hour public hearing where residents opposed the project’s proximity to historic and residential land. Similarly, in the UK, a planned 90 MW data center on protected Green Belt land near London is facing a legal challenge for bypassing environmental safeguards and community concerns.

Operational Risks Linked to Social Unrest:

  • From the riots related to the Rio 2016 summer Olympics to the deaths of demonstrators protesting the Conga Mine in Peru, social unrest can create operational risks for the company as well as security risks for company staff and local communities.

  • A 2020 study published in the journal Environmental Research found that opposition to fossil-fuel and low-carbon energy projects are having important operational impacts. Of the 649 projects reviewed that had encountered some form of social resistance, more than 25% were “shelved, suspended or delayed”, suggesting significant operational risk for project proponents, in addition to reputational hits or financial costs incurred, as a result of the media attention and lost time spent on project development, respectively.

  • Companies can cause adverse human rights impacts when they fail to carry out meaningful consultation with affected stakeholders and their actions negatively affect human rights. A failure to allow time for the conduct of Free, Prior and Informed Consultation (FPIC) with affected Indigenous communities, or to ensure that FPIC with these communities has been conducted by others, is itself a breach of Indigenous people’s human rights. More generally, a company may cause human rights impacts when it sets timescales which preclude consultation with affected communities as part of a risk assessment and mitigation process, and the company’s actions then have negative impacts on communities such as forced displacement, depriving communities of access to water, food or livelihoods or preventing them of entering cultural sites.

  • Organizations (including companies, mega-event organizers and financial institutions) can contribute to adverse human rights impacts when their business models create demand for speed in the delivery of projects by third parties, and the demand for speed prevents third parties from carrying out meaningful consultation with local communities, resulting in adverse human rights impacts.

Addressing impacts on people associated with this red flag can contribute to ensuring responsible, inclusive and participatory and representative decision-making at all levels (Target 16.7 of SDG 16: promoting peaceful and inclusive societies).

The results of consultation with groups affected by projects can enable companies to better understand and mitigate risks to people, which can contribute to the following SDGs:

  • SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Meaningful consultation can help ensure that people – particularly vulnerable communities – have equal rights to economic resources, including ownership and control over land.

  • SDG 2: Zero hunger. Meaningful consultation can help agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale farmers, in particular women and Indigenous communities, including through secure and equal access to land and productive resources.

  • SDG 3: Good health and wellbeing. Meaningful consultation can help protect stakeholders’ health by preventing negative impacts such as pollution of soil, air or water sources, or impacts from poor working conditions such as fatigue, stress and accidents.

  • SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation. Meaningful consultation can help prevent pollution of water sources.

  • SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. Meaningful consultation can help to ensure that clean energy projects are advanced swiftly and with public support.

  • SDG 13: Climate action. Meaningful consultation can help to ensure that the transition to a lower carbon economy is fast because it is fair.

Taking Action /

  • Do we understand the local context and the potential ways in which our project can impact on people?

  • Do we have a process to sensitize our staff about local issues and the local context?

  • Do we know which stakeholders we need to consult and how to structure the consultations to make them meaningful and accessible?

  • Have any vulnerable or historically marginalized groups been identified in or around the project site?

  • Do we know if groups that self-identify as Indigenous Peoples are impacted by the project and, if so, do we understand how that will impact project timelines?

  • Do those responsible for community engagement have the requisite skills and experience for engaging with affected stakeholders, including Indigenous Peoples?

  • Do our project plans allow sufficient time for consultation to take place?

  • Do we actively support community relations managers to carry out the consultations?

  • Does advice from community relations managers get reported to the executive?

  • Are we prepared to review the project plan based on insights from the consultations?

  • Do we measure and/or have we accounted for the cost of conflict with local communities?

* Mitigation examples are current or historical examples for reference, but do not offer insight into their relative maturity or effectiveness.

  • In Australia, the co-development of shared standards (e.g., Infrastructure Engagement Excellence Standards) has provided government, industry and communities with a common basis upon which to understand, participate in and assess meaningful community engagement or, in the case of the Best Practice Principles for Clean Energy Projects, to help support indigenous communities in seeking to share the benefits of Australia’s clean energy sector expansion.

  • Encouraging active citizenship by building the capacity of civil society to unlock productive dialogue between the company and local communities. For example, Oxfam’s NORAD project in Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique to improve petroleum governance.

  • Dialogue tables co-owned by companies, local communities and stakeholders (civil society) as spaces for respectful, patient engagement and joint problem-solving. The dialogue tables can be facilitated by neutral third parties, which can help companies and communities build trust in the process. For instance, Anglo American participated in dialogue tables in the Quellaveco project in Peru. This enabled the company to make commitments to the local community on water management, environmental protection and social investment.

  • A mediation process between Alcoa and an affected Brazilian community on land use sharing for mining and community was established and mediated by Brazilian government authorities and ultimately resulted in benefits and compensations for all parties.

  • Monitoring agencies set up between representatives of Indigenous peoples, local government and businesses to enable joint decision-making and monitoring compliance with the terms of the agreement between the company and local communities. The Snap Lake Environmental Monitoring Agency was set up by DeBeers, the Government of the Northwest Territories of Canada and a number of aboriginal groups. Its board was comprised of representatives of Indigenous groups, and the agency functioned as a “watchdog” to monitor environmental compliance by DeBeers.

  • Tailored approaches that respond to community concerns and go beyond compliance can help companies and communities build trust. In New Zealand, Newmont Waihi Gold (NWG) wanted to expand their gold mining beneath homes of the local community. The company realized that a primary concern of the community related to property damage. In response, NWG set up a number of platforms that went beyond the legal requirements to provide transparency and enable the community a role in decision-making. These included an independent ombudsman for property matters, a policy to guide how the company would respond to matters of property damage, and a community forum with members of the community, the company and local government.

  • Empowered community liaison officers who, in addition to being approachable and personable towards the local community, can take decisive action when concerns are raised. For instance, in Bolivia, Total empowered a Community Liaison Officer to lead dialogue and participatory engagement with Indigenous groups in areas of complex land tenure, improving stakeholder communication and fostering transparent, inclusive social and environmental assessments. This approach, part of a broader human-rights strategy, helped to build trust and align company operations with community expectations.

  • The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI) and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre are making the case for a renewable energy transition that centers Indigenous Peoples’ rights, interests and prosperity, as determined by them, in pursuit of a global transition that is fast because it is fair and sustainable. Among other resources, the report outlines emerging benefit-sharing modalities with real-world examples of where and how they are being deployed, as well as recommendations for regulators, renewable energy developers and financial institutions.

  • In Alaska, the Red Dog Mine operation, which sources nearly 5% of global zinc supply, was developed through an operating agreement between Teck Resources and 15,000 Iñupiat shareholders of NANA Corporation.

  • One of the largest seafood companies in the southern hemisphere is 50% owned on behalf of the Māori people of New Zealand and 50% by the Japanese company Nissui.

General

Sector specific:

Citation of research papers and other resources does not constitute an endorsement by Shift of their conclusions.

Dr. Christine Chow /

Board Member

She/Her

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Dr. Christine Chow has more than 25 years’ experience in investment management spanning sustainable investment, corporate governance, technology and AI.

She has held senior leadership roles at UBS Asset Management, HSBC Asset Management and Federated Hermes, where she led global stewardship, thematic research, responsible investment and engagement with companies on sustainability and governance issues. She was the human rights engagement lead at Federated Hermes, where she pioneered its approach to global value chain engagement with electronics companies, and advocated for provenance and traceability of critical minerals.

Christine served as Managing Director at UBS Asset Management, leading on global stewardship, thematic research and impact engagement. Previously, she was Global Head of Stewardship and a board member of HSBC Asset Management UK Limited, and Head of Asia and Global Technology at Federated Hermes EOS. From 2019 to 2025, she served as a board member and then Chair of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), a global investor-led organisation representing around US$100 trillion in assets under management across more than 40 countries.

Christine is recognised internationally for her work on responsible investment, AI governance and corporate stewardship. She has published influential work on responsible AI and data governance and was a member of the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, serving on its Data Governance Task Force. She is the Appointed Advisor of AFRC in Hong Kong, the independent regulator of the accounting profession, and Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics. Her PhD research on responsible investment was shortlisted for a United Nations award recognising industry relevance and academic excellence.

David Vermijs /

Director

He/Him Amsterdam

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As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

David has over a decade of experience advising multinational corporations, governments, NGOs and others on business and human rights. Prior to joining Shift, David provided research assistance to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie. As part of his contributions, David field-tested human rights due diligence with a group of Dutch companies and their stakeholders, and he supported research on company-led grievance mechanisms.

From 2008 to 2010, David was the lead consultant on an 18-month project, the Business and Human Rights Initiative, under the umbrella of the Global Compact Network Netherlands. The initiative was a collaboration between 10 Dutch multinationals – ABN AMRO, AkzoNobel, Essent, KLM, Philips, Rabobank, Randstad, Shell, TNT and Unilever – and led to the publication of a ground-breaking business guidance tool, How to Do Business with Respect for Human Rights, in 2010. Through his work at Shift, David led the update of this publication from 2014 to 2016 with the support of the Dutch government under their National Action Plan on implementing the Guiding Principles.

Another major guidance tool David has helped develop addresses due diligence on child labor, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in 2015. The guidance was the result of a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, multi-country project led by David involving the ILO, IOE, companies, unions, NGOs and other stakeholders.

David was previously a Research Fellow at the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, including assisting in teaching on business and human rights, global governance, corporate governance and leadership. David sits in a personal capacity on the board of the Dutch Social and Economic Council International Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. He has a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in Business from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. David is a Dutch national, speaks English and Dutch and is proficient in Spanish and German.

Anna Triponel /

Senior Associate

She/Her London

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As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, lawyers, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice.

As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice. Trained as a lawyer, Anna focuses particularly on working with legal professionals on their role in implementing the Guiding Principles and has led work on analyzing regulations in various jurisdictions and how they align to the Guiding Principles. She also has particular expertise on the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. 

Prior to joining Shift, Anna provided input to the work of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie as a legal consultant. During this period, Anna also opened the New York office of the Public International Law & Policy Group, where she advised government officials, opposition leaders, human rights victims and civil society organizations on human rights, constitutional reform and transitional justice in Burma, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Somaliland, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Anna was previously a mergers and acquisitions associate at the law firm of Jones Day in New York, where she advised a broad range of multinational companies on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint venture, private equity and venture capital transactions. She founded and led the law firm’s International Law Pro Bono Group. She began her career as an advisor to the World Bank, advising on development governance structures to better meet the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education.

Anna is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New York, England & Wales and France. She is a frequent expert speaker and writer on business and human rights and is the recipient of various professional awards, including the Empire State Counsel Award for changing the lives of those unable to afford counsel and the Seymour-Reuben Award for shaping international law. Anna has a Masters in International Law from American University Washington College of Law and a degree in common and civil law from the University of Paris X. She has been awarded the Business Sustainability Management certificate from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the MBA Essentials certificate from London School of Economics (LSE). Anna is a British and French national and speaks English and French.

Martyn Platt /

Head of Human Resources

He/Him

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization.

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization. He ensures that Shift’s systems, policies and practices foster a thriving, inclusive and values-driven culture that supports our mission to embed respect for people’s dignity at the core of business practice.

Martyn brings over a decade of HR leadership experience across mission-driven and international organizations working at the intersection of business and society. Prior to joining Shift, he was Director of People Development & Culture at the PRI and earlier worked with Business in the Community. In these roles, he developed and embedded HR business partnering models, guided the organizations through significant growth and transformation, and partnered with senior leaders to design and implement people strategies that supported the delivery of their mission. Most recently, he served as a consultant with the WeProtect Global Alliance, where he supported the establishment of their HR function.

He is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and holds a Level 7 Diploma in Human Resource Management, as well as an ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching and Mentoring, reflecting his strong focus on leadership development and coaching. Martyn studied German and International Relations at the University of Exeter, including a year at the University of Würzburg in Germany. He later worked on education projects in Nicaragua, strengthening his global outlook and commitment to people-centred change.

Martyn is based in the United Kingdom.

Brianna Peterson /

Senior Advisor

She/Her Rome

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As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change.

Specializes in Financial Institutions

As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change. Brianna combines environment and climate change expertise with experience developing and implementing human rights policies, due diligence approaches and sustainability reporting.

Before Shift, Brianna spearheaded innovative sustainability initiatives at Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Export Development Canada (EDC). At EDC she led the development and implementation of exciting new portfolio approaches for climate change and human rights risk management, as well as aligning EDC’s corporate reporting with international reporting frameworks, such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the UNGPs Reporting Framework.  She also led EDC’s international sustainability negotiations and engagements, including as co-Chair of the Equator Principles Climate Change Working Group.

Prior to joining EDC, Brianna worked for nine years as a diplomat with Canada’s foreign ministry, including four years at the United Nations General Assembly where she led environment and development negotiations, advocacy and outreach on behalf of the Government of Canada, including for the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Brianna has also advised international financial institutions including the World Bank Group, institutional investors, bilateral development agencies, and small- and medium-sized enterprises on the practical application of environment, climate change, human rights standards.

Brianna has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University and a Master’s degree in Environmental Change & Management from the University of Oxford.

Ashleigh Owens /

Director | Financial Institutions Lead

She/Her New York City

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As Shift’s Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh leads our work with financial institutions and supports other partners across industries, leveraging her breadth of experience to tackle cutting-edge issues and entrenched challenges on the road to implementation of the UN Guiding Principles.

Specializes in Financial Institutions | Valuing Respect

As Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh engages directly with financial institutions, companies and investors as they embed respect for human rights into their operations and business relationships. She also leads on pieces of research under our Valuing Respect Project, which is focused on developing better ways to evaluate business respect for human rights. Ashleigh has a breadth of experience approaching the Guiding Principles from business, legal and academic perspectives and brings a holistic view to Guiding Principles implementation.

Ashleigh was previously Executive Director at Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services. At EY Japan, she led a team of consultants supporting policy-making, educational program and governance design, stakeholder dialogue and due diligence strategies for multinational and domestic companies across a variety of industries.  As founder of the EY Human Rights Network, she led the enhancement of EY’s human rights capabilities across EY’s global network. In her role she was a frequent speaker and moderator of dialogues at multi-stakeholder fora and functioned as a connector between civil society, government and corporate actors with a common goal of empowering business to respect rights.

From 2012 to 2014 she conducted research at the United Nations University in the field of Sustainability Science, specializing in business and human rights. She prepared research for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and spent time at the UN Global Compact New York and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Ashleigh later sat on the UN Global Compact’s Human Rights and Labour Working Group and drafted the Global Compact’s 2015 Guide on How to Develop a Human Rights Policy.

Ashleigh is a lawyer qualified in Australia and England & Wales and specialized in intellectual property law, labor law and public international law. She has advised governments and companies on state human rights obligations, companies on the nexus between bilateral investment treaties and human rights and fellow lawyers on integrating the Guiding Principles into legal advice. In 2007 she won the Intellectual Property Society of Australia & NZ prize.

Ashleigh has authored or contributed to a number of publications including: Business and Human Rights: Corporate Japan Rises to the Challenge (joint publication between EY Japan and Global Compact Network Japan), Corporate Social Responsibility Can Save Japan (Op-ed in Japan Times), Cumulative Human Rights Impacts (in UN Global Compact/ Maplecroft Business Dilemmas Forum) as well as several legal publications on intellectual property law in Australia and English translations of Japanese High Court judgments. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)’s Division for Prosperity.

Ashleigh has degrees in Law and Asian Studies from the University of Western Australia, with studies also conducted at the University of Vienna and Sophia University in Japan. She has a Masters of Science in Sustainability from the United Nations University and has undertaken the institution’s Leadership for Sustainability program. Ashleigh is an Australian national, and is fluent in Japanese.

Rachel Davis /

Vice President and Co-Founder

She/Her Sydney

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As the Vice President and Co-Founder of Shift, Rachel helps shape our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel is also responsible for driving our work on standards advocacy and with sports associations.

Specializes in Standard Setters | Sports and Human Rights

Rachel is one of Shift’s co-founders and has led work at Shift over the last decade on standard-setting, human rights and sports, financial institutions, conflict and international law.

As Vice President, Rachel shapes our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel leads Shift’s work to influence standard-setters of all kinds to integrate the UN Guiding Principles into the rules that govern business, including engaging with governments and the European Union on mandatory human rights due diligence.

Rachel also has unique experience advising and leading efforts to drive respect for human rights into the operations of global sports governing bodies. Rachel was the Chair of FIFA’s independent Human Rights Advisory Board while it operated, between 2017 and 2021. She has advised the International Olympic Committee on human rights since 2018, including co-authoring recommendations for the IOC on a comprehensive human rights strategy with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein.

Rachel has more than a decade of experience in implementing the Guiding Principles with a wide range of organizations, including public and private financial institutions and companies from diverse business sectors and geographies, and she frequently leads and facilitates engagements with senior audiences around the world. She is the co-author of the leading study of the costs of company-community conflict in the extractive sector.

Prior to co-founding Shift, Rachel was a senior legal advisor from 2006-2011 to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights, Harvard Professor John Ruggie. She played a pivotal role in the development of the Guiding Principles, advising on all aspects of the relationship between the Guiding Principles and national and international law.

Rachel is also a Senior Program Fellow with the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and has experience at the highest levels of the Australian legal system and internationally, having clerked at the High Court of Australia and at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. She has a particular interest in Indigenous peoples’ rights, having advised the Australian Federal Attorney-General’s Department on Indigenous affairs and acted as Ruggie’s liaison with the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues during his UN mandate.

Rachel has a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School and Bachelors degrees in Law and Politics from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where she also lectured and published in law. She is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New South Wales.

Federico Burlon /

Director

He/Him London

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Prior to joining Shift, Federico was Head of Delivery at Impactt. Federico managed a portfolio of clients, supported by a team of consultants. He led human rights assessment and remediation projects in the construction, energy, food and shipbuilding industries. This resulted in positive outcomes such as the return of passports and reimbursement of recruitment fees to workers and the strengthening of companies’ employment practices. Federico led Impactt’s engagement with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy in Qatar as external monitor of worker welfare in the construction of venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He also developed Impactt’s Diagnostics community of practice, delivering for clients as well as building internal capacity to execute human rights assessments around the world, with a focus on worker voice.

Prior to Impactt, Federico was a Sustainability Manager at Tesco plc. He contributed to the roll out of Tesco’s ethical trading programme to the goods-not-for-resale value chain. Federico engaged with hundreds of product and services suppliers and internal purchasing and sourcing teams to raise awareness of human rights issues and to prioritise and address the findings from third-party social audits. He also worked on climate change to develop a roadmap to achieve Tesco’s carbon reduction commitments related to direct and supply chain emissions.

In prior roles, Federico worked with a variety of human rights organisations in the United Kingdom and United States.

Federico holds a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College, with a focus on human rights law and international migration. He is a United World College Adriatic alumnus and is from Argentina.

Erika George /

Board Member

She/Her

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Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. She has conducted leading research and is a passionate advocate for women’s rights, children’s rights, gender equality and environmental justice. 

Professor Erika R. George is the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, & Engagement, Professor of Law, and Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Law and a leading expert in business and human rights.

Professor George is the author of “Incorporating Rights: Strategies to Advance Corporate Accountability” (Oxford University Press, 2021), which examines the evolution of demands for corporate responsibility to respect international human rights. She was a founding member of the editorial board of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and since 2022  has served on the board of Shift. 

Before joining BU Law in 2024, Professor George spent over two decades at the University of Utah as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law. She directed the Tanner Humanities Center for four years and worked to enhance engagement and expand and diversify audiences for public humanities programs during her tenure. She also advocated for academic freedom and the right to read. Along with the former poet laureate of Utah, she co-founded the PEN America Utah Chapter to protect access to information and prevent censorship. 

Professor George is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation fellow, a trustee of Earthjustice, and serves on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Society of American Law Teachers’ M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award and the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission Human Rights Award.

Professor George earned her BA with honors from the University of Chicago, a MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and a JD from Harvard Law School. She also clerked for Judge William T. Hart of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She was a litigation associate at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Chicago before joining Human Rights Watch as a research fellow.

We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.

Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Professor George served as a law clerk and litigation associate at prominent firms in both Illinois and New York. She also worked as a fellow and later consultant at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted investigations in South Africa on women’s rights, children’s rights, violence, the right to education and abuses related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She wrote a book-length report, Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools, which received widespread media coverage in South Africa and internationally. She currently serves as special counsel to the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

Her scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the New York University Journal of International Law and Policy, and the annual proceedings of the American Society of International Law.

Professor George has served on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of State Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan and as a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. She is an Editor for the blog globaljusticeblog.com.

We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.

John Ruggie /

Founding Chair / In Memoriam

John Ruggie is the author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In Memory of John Ruggie

John served as the founding Chair of Shift from 2011 to 2021. He was the Berthold Beitz Research Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also taught at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California, and at Columbia University where he became Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. From 1997-2001 John served as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning in the cabinet of Kofi Annan; from 2002-2005 as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General for the Global Compact; and from 2005-2011 as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he received numerous awards from academic and professional societies for his contributions to social science, public policy and the development of international law. In addition to serving as Shift’s Board Chairman, John was also on the Board of Arabesque Asset Management Holding Company as well as Unilever’s Sustainability Advisory Council. His book, Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Caroline Rees /

President and Co-Founder

She/Her New York City

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As Shift’s President, Caroline leads our strategic development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights.

As the President and Co-Founder of Shift, Caroline leads our organizational strategy and development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights. Caroline speaks extensively at events around the world and frequently facilitates dialogue and debate amongst companies, governments, investors and civil society. In recent years, Caroline has focused on improving corporate human rights reporting as a catalyst for better human rights risk management, and on improving the data and methods used in evaluating companies’ social performance as part of ESG (environmental, social and governance) analysis. She has written and spoken extensively on the relevance of business respect for human rights, and the UNGPs specifically, to movements that seek to advance sustainability, equality, ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism, and human and social capital.

Caroline previously spent 14 years with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 2003 to 2006 she led the UK’s human rights negotiating team at the UN and she ran the negotiations to establish the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights. The success of this initiative led to Professor John Ruggie’s appointment and from 2007-2011 Caroline was a lead advisor on his team and deeply involved in the drafting of the Guiding Principles.

From 2009 to 2011 Caroline was also the Director of the Governance and Accountability Program at the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and she remains a Senior Program Fellow there. Caroline is a member of the Imperatives Board of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Board of the Capitals Coalition, the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council, and the Steering Committee of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures.

Caroline’s prior British foreign service career covered Iran, Slovakia, the UN Security Council in New York and the European Union in Brussels. Caroline has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Caroline is a British national and speaks English, French and German.