This guidance was published in May 2016. Also see our Viewpoint on this topic and the announcement from the launch of the guidance.
Shift is pleased to have collaborated with the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and Financial Reporting Council to develop guidance for board directors in the UK on human rights disclosure and performance. The guidance was launched in May 2016 — see our links above.
The project’s objectives were to improve UK-quoted company boards’ and investors’ understanding of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, as well as the quality of companies’ human rights reporting and disclosure.
The project began in September 2015 and had three phases. The first phase included consultations with board directors, investors, advisors to boards and civil society organizations to explore appropriate content for the guidance. This phase included events in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. In the second phase, the project team developed and refined drafts of the guidance for directors on human rights disclosure and performance with input from an expert advisory group, consisting of leading individuals from board, investor and board advisor (including legal) backgrounds. The guidance was launched at a London event in May 2016 featuring speakers from the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, Barclays, BT Group, Hermes EOS and Shift.
