Identify
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are a set of guidelines for States and companies to prevent, address and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations.
Use this resource to:
- Strategy: Adopt the standards and practices with regard to business and human rights so as to achieve tangible results for affected individuals and communities, and thereby also contribute to a socially sustainable globalisation.
- Governance: Embed the human rights policy throughout a business’ functions.
- Identify: Understand the responsibility of enterprises to respect human rights, depending on their scale and scope.
- Assess: Implement human rights due diligence.
- Set Targets: Design targets based on human rights due diligence assessment.
- Act: Learn how states and companies can prevent and address negative impacts on human rights by business.
- Monitor: Set up continued human rights due diligence for monitoring purposes.
- Disclose: Make publicly available human rights commitments and processes.
Global guidance on the integration of environmental, social and governance risks into insurance underwriting
The first global guide to manage ESG risks in risk assessment and insurance underwriting. It has an initial focus on non-life insurance business—also known as property and casualty insurance business.
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Understand the materiality of ESG risks to various lines of business and economic sectors, including characteristics which might affect the ability to assess and mitigate such risks.
- Assess: Develop approaches to assess ESG risks in non-life insurance business transactions, particularly industrial and commercial insurance business.
- Act: Address the growing concerns by stakeholders across society (e.g. NGOs, investors, governments).
Why and how investors should act on human rights
This paper sets out how investors can ensure they respect human rights across all their investment activities, as defined by the UN and OECD.
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Understand which actual and potential negative human rights outcomes investors are connected to through their investments.
- Assess: Understand the extent to which investors are facilitating human rights harm; the extent to which they could or should have known; and the quality of any mitigating steps.
Driving meaningful data: financial materiality, sustainability performance and sustainability outcomes
A framework that incorporates financial materiality and sustainability performance calibrated to progress on sustainability outcomes. This resource also considers sources of data needed to complete this picture across entities such as companies, governments and global institutions and activities.
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Identify current and forward-looking information that assesses the range of sustainable risks and opportunities.
- Assess: Assess and interpret a company’s sustainability performance and alignment in the context of long-term sustainability goals and thresholds.
Bridging the gap: How infrastructure can contribute to SDG outcomes
This discussion paper details the current approaches that infrastructure investors are adopting to consider the Sustainable Development Goals as part of their investment approaches.
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Identify outcomes caused by, contributed to and linked to their infrastructure investors, in relation to the SDGs.
- Act: Understand the methods by which infrastructure investors can achieve desired SDG outcomes. Ensure that outcomes in line with the SDGs are integrated into infrastructure investment processes.
Due Diligence for Responsible Corporate Lending and Securities Underwriting
The overall objective of the Initiative is to advance human rights and positive outcomes for people through investor stewardship. The Initiative will primarily seek change through investors’ use of influence with a global framework for financial institutions to identify, respond to and publicly communicate on environmental and social risks associated with their clients.
Use this resource to:
- Governance: Embed responsible business conduct into policies and management systems.
- Identify: Understand the expectations of responsible business conduct, including a discussion of key considerations when identifying negative impacts and risks.
- Assess: Understand the key considerations in carrying out due diligence as recommended by the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines). This helps to prevent and address adverse impacts related to human and labour rights, the environment, and corruption caused by financial institutions in the context of their corporate lending and underwriting activities.
- Monitor: Monitor due diligence processes to prevent and address adverse impacts related to human and labour rights, the environment, and corruption caused by companies.
OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct
Guidance that provides practical support to enterprises on the implementation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by providing plain language explanations of its due diligence recommendations and associated provisions.
For organisations
Use this resource to:
- Governance, strategy, and management approach: Assist enterprises with developing and strengthening their due diligence system, as well as processes related to impacts in operations, supply chains, and business relationships.
For investors and financial institutions
Use this resource to:
- Governance: Embed responsible business conduct into policies and management systems.
- Identify: Use guidance for expectations of responsible business conduct, including a discussion of key considerations when identifying negative impacts and risks.
- Assess: Understand the key considerations in carrying out due diligence, as recommended by the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines). This helps to prevent and address adverse impacts related to human and labour rights, the environment and corruption caused by companies.
- Monitor: Monitor due diligence processes to prevent and address adverse impacts related to human and labour rights, the environment, and corruption caused by companies.
Finance Sector Supplement
The overall objective of the Initiative is to advance human rights and positive outcomes for people through A framework for financial institutions – including banks, investors and insurers – to measure and value natural capital impacts and dependencies across the entities and portfolios that they finance, invest in or underwrite.
Use this resource to:
- Strategy: Establish the business case for undertaking a natural capital assessment that is relevant to your institution.
- Identify: Define what should be included in your natural capital assessment.
- Assess: Interpret results and identify actions that you can take.
Advance: PRI stewardship initiative for human rights and social issues
The overall objective of the Initiative is to advance human rights and positive outcomes for people through investor stewardship. The Initiative will primarily seek change through investors’ use of influence with portfolio companies. The following three expectations will be set for engagement focus companies:
- Fully implement the UNGPs –the guardrail of corporate conduct on human rights
- Align their political engagement with their responsibility to respect human rights
- Deepen progress on the most severe human rights issues in their operations and across their value
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Select the companies and sectors that investors can engage with, in support of the Initiative’s overall objectives. This includes identifying the sectors and companies where human rights and impacts are most severe.
- Act: Determine where investors within the Initiative can influence (through stewardship) sectors and companies, to advance respect for human rights.