This series took place the week of August 8, 2016 as part of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission inaugural Business and Human Rights Forum.
In collaboration with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Shift is pleased to have delivered an education and awareness series about the Guiding Principles for government representatives, parliamentarians, investors, directors, CEOs, company practitioners and civil society representatives in New Zealand. The series took place in August 2016.
Topics that were addressed during the weeklong series in Wellington and Auckland include global uptake of the Guiding Principles, various governments’ actions on business and human rights including in the areas of procurement and disclosure, sharing of leading practices by investors in assessing human rights risks, the role of board directors in overseeing their company’s management of human rights, and exploration of specific business and human rights risks in the New Zealand context. The Australian Human Rights Commission also participated in the program as part of their collaboration with the Commission of New Zealand.
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.
Over a period of several years, Shift supported several National Contact Point (NCP) systems to help them better fulfill their role as part of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The Guidelines are closely aligned with the Guiding Principles when it comes to the expectations of businesses to respect human rights.
In 2014, Shift also provided expert support to the OECD Secretariat to conduct a range of capacity building workshops and activities with NCPs. Shift partnered with the Consensus Building Institute in this work. Specific, we delivered:
A workshop to build the mediation skills and capacity of the Nordic group of NCPs in Oslo, Norway;
The first “horizontal peer review” session among the NCPs at their annual meeting in Paris in June 2014, focused on strengthening good practices and sharing learning on handling the initial assessment phase of specific instances;
A capacity building workshop with the Middle East and North African group of NCPs (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia) in Rabat, Morocco;
A workshop to build the mediation skills and capacity of the Latin American group of NCPs in Santiago, Chile.
Shift was pleased to support the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in Ghana in 2014 to advance business respect for human rights. CHRAJ is Ghana’s National Human Rights Institution with a mandate to promote and protect fundamental human rights and freedoms in Ghana. In implementing this mandate, CHRAJ is closely involved in national discussions about business and human rights and implementation of the Guiding Principles by the government and businesses operating in Ghana.
The presence of a number of extractive and agribusiness companies has brought heightened attention to preventing and addressing business impacts on society in Ghana. There is relevant experience on both the company and civil society sides engaging on these issues, and CHRAJ had identified opportunities to strengthen capacity across all three key stakeholder groups – government, business and civil society – in understanding and implementing the Guiding Principles.
In 2014, Shift and CHRAJ jointly organized three capacity building workshops for stakeholder groups on the Guiding Principles in Accra. Shift and CHRAJ collaborated with the Dutch NGO, the Centre for Research on Multinational Enterprises (SOMO), which hosts the OECD Watch network, in delivering the civil society capacity building workshop.
“Shift has given us unique, expert insight and tools that have enabled us to pragmatically work toward our goal of effectively implementing the UN Guiding Principles.”
Kamil Zabielski, Senior Social and Human Rights Specialist, GIEK
Shift is pleased to have worked closely with the Norwegian Export Credit Guarantee Agency (Garanti-instituttet for eksportkreditt-GIEK) (“GIEK”) to help it further align its approach to environmental and social due diligence with the Guiding Principles.
Shift provided expert support to GIEK in 2013 in the development of these policies. In 2014, Shift worked with GIEK to explore how it could strengthen its stakeholder engagement and grievance pathways with regard to the transactions it supports.
On April 16, 2013, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on non-financial reporting with the objective of increasing EU companies’ transparency and performance on environmental and social matters, including human rights. Shift together with our Chair, Professor John Ruggie, submitted amendments to the proposed Directive to enhance its alignment with the Guiding Principles.
Also see: John Ruggie’s 2014 letter to the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on reasonable but robust provisions that would be necessary to achieve an effective EU non-financial reporting Directive.
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises set out a range of recommendations with regard to responsible business conduct. Following their revision in 2011, they now include a new chapter on human rights, which mirrors the language of the Guiding Principles. They also include a new provision regarding stakeholder engagement, which states:
“Enterprises should engage with relevant stakeholders in order to provide meaningful opportunities for their views to be taken into account in relation to planning and decision-making for projects and/or other activities that may significantly impact local communities.” (Chapter II.14)
Shift is pleased to have collaborated with the OECD to explore the potential for new guidance on the implementation of this provision of the Guidelines. This collaboration was part of the OECD’s “proactive agenda,” led by the governments of Canada and Norway.
Shift submitted a discussion paper in June 2013 on stakeholder engagement in the extractive industry, setting out options and recommendations for a proposed “user guide” to address this issue. The paper considers how best to build on existing guidance and address relevant gaps. It was discussed at the inaugural meeting of the OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct in June 2013.
In alignment with the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) revised Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability, the IFC has been exploring the development good practice guidance for its private sector clients on the issue of human rights due diligence in high risk circumstances. Shift provided expert input to the IFC in 2013 on the content of potential guidance.
The Performance Standards’ requirements regarding the environmental and social due diligence processes that all IFC-financed projects must have in place are robust; however, the Performance Standards themselves recognize that, in certain high risk circumstances, it may be appropriate for companies to complement these processes with specific human rights due diligence (see Performance Standard 1, footnote 12). This raises two key framing questions that any guidance on this issue should address:
Under what circumstances might specific human rights due diligence be appropriate;
What should human rights due diligence entail in such high risk circumstances?
Any IFC guidance on these questions would need to be practical, relevant and grounded in the challenging realities facing companies that operate in complex, high-risk contexts. It should also build upon existing resources for companies on these issues, and seek to ensure a convergence of guidance wherever appropriate.
While the immediate audience for good practice guidance issued by the IFC is IFC client companies, the impact of the Performance Standards extends well beyond IFC-financed projects – providing a global benchmark referenced by numerous public and private financial institutions, as well as informing the policies and practices of many companies operating in emerging markets.
The study includes a review of the expectations of German business and civil society stakeholders regarding government assistance and guidance in the implementation of the Guiding Principles; an evaluation of best practice examples from other relevant states; and concrete recommendations for action.
The Human Rights Reporting and Assurance Frameworks Initiative (RAFI) is a multistakeholder consultative process that supported the development of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework and its two supporting guidances: implementation guidance for companies that are reporting, and assurance guidance for internal auditors and external assurance providers. The UNGP Reporting Framework, its supporting guidances and additional insights about trends in existing company reporting on human rights are available at www.UNGPreporting.org.
In August 2016, Shift began a multi-year, multi-country reporting program that uses the UNGP Reporting Framework to catalyze improved reporting and performance by companies on human rights. Learn more about that program here.
What is the UNGP Reporting Framework?
“The UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework is an indispensable tool that companies have been waiting for. This tool will mark a major breakthrough in company relations with individuals and communities whose lives they impact.” – John Ruggie, author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
John Ruggie, author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
The UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework is the first comprehensive guidance for companies to report on human rights issues in line with their responsibility to respect human rights. This responsibility is set out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which constitute the authoritative global standard in this field. The UNGP Reporting Framework was launched in February 2015.
The Reporting Framework provides a concise set of questions to which any company should strive to have answers in order to know and show that it is meeting its responsibility to respect human rights in practice. It offers companies clear and straightforward guidance on how to answer these questions with relevant and meaningful information about their human rights policies, processes and performance.
The Reporting Framework is supported by two kinds of guidance: implementation guidance for companies that are reporting, and assurance guidance for internal auditors and external assurance providers.
The UNGP Reporting Framework was developed through the Human Rights Reporting and Assurance Frameworks Initiative (RAFI). RAFI was co-facilitated by Shift and Mazars through an open, global, consultative process involving representatives from over 200 companies, investor groups, civil society organizations, governments, assurance providers, lawyers and other expert organizations from all regions of the world. Consultations took place in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Jakarta, London, Manila, Medellin, New York and Yangon.
The Reporting and Assurance Frameworks Initiative was overseen by an Eminent Persons Group. Further information about the project team and the Eminent Persons Group can be viewed here. RAFI was made possible by grants from the governments of Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
“The UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework equips us to understand what we may face – it reduces the number of unknown unknowns.”
Richard Kooloos, Head of Sustainable Banking, ABN AMRO; early adopter of the UNGP Reporting Framework
Support for the Reporting Framework
The Reporting Framework is supported by an investor coalition of 87 investors representing $5.3 trillion assets under management, by six early adopter companies and by leading institutions including the UN Working Group on business and human rights, the UN Global Compact and the International Integrated Reporting Council.
The UNGP Reporting Framework is, “an essential tool that enables investors to review companies’ understanding and management of human rights risks. It will also guide us in our engagement with companies going forward.” — investor statement of support
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