Human Rights

Human rights in business is under the spotlight following the June 2011 endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of the "Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework" developed by UN Special Representative Professor John Ruggie. 

In the context of rapid globalisation of companies operations, including a growing presence in developing countries and countries with weak regulatory frameworks, human rights is becoming very much a business responsibility. This is corroborated in heightened stakeholder expectations and media scrutiny on business to demonstrate they are assessing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity. 

In this environment, it is imperative that businesses understand what human rights impacts they have, and that they have the policies and frameworks in place to mitigate, manage and address potential risks. While some companies address individual areas of human rights (for example health & safety, diversity, collective bargaining, labour rights in supply chains and indigenous employment), few have developed overarching human rights governance policies and company-wide management frameworks. 

Until recently there have been no agreed upon management frameworks to assist companies in addressing these issues, but with the development of the UN guiding principles for business on human rights, there is greater clarity on how business can respond.

Proactive management of human rights risk presents an opportunity for our clients to increase the influence of their sustainability strategies by engaging with employees, business partners and suppliers to reduce risk, protect their social license to operate and create new opportunities for business and investment. 

Net Balance consultants have sound expertise in human rights. These include:

• Assisting a large, listed services company in assessing human rights impacts/risks across its global operations and in developing appropriate management responses
• Developing a human rights investment risk assessment tool for one of Australia’s largest fund managers
• Assessing human rights risks as part of our Sustainable Procurement advisory assignments
• Providing assurance of human rights performance for the purposes of public disclosure for a range of clients

The Net Balance Foundation carries out and publishes research into human rights:

• A collaborative research project with CAER and ACCA into human rights investment risk and public disclosure for the ASX 100
• In collaboration with ACCA, assessed the public disclosure in the area of bribery and corruption for the ASX 50