Multi-topic

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.

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.

The Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) have released a set of target-setting guidance on topics such as Resource Efficiency & Circular Economy, Biodiversity, Financial Health & Inclusion, Climate, and Gender Equality.

Use this resource to:

• Set Targets: Set targets in line with the requirements of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking.

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.

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.

These metrics are designed to enable a better measurement of contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by companies active in a particular sector. Investors can subsequently rely on this disclosure to make capital allocation decisions between companies in a given sector.

Use this resource to:

• Assess: Measure the contributions of companies to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are active in a particular sector. Investors can subsequently rely on this disclosure to make capital allocation decisions between companies in a given sector.

The overall objective of the Initiative is to advance human rights and positive outcomes for people through iIn 2020, the GISD Alliance reached consensus on a common definition of Sustainable Development Investing (SDI) that can help establish norms that differentiate investment strategies.

Use this resource to:

• Strategy: Use as a reference for some key definitions and recommended practices when embedding impact management into strategy, governance and management approach.

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.

Reporting standards designed to help organisations understand and disclose their impacts in a way that meets the needs of multiple stakeholders. These standards are arranged by a set of Universal Standards that apply to all organisations, and 35 Topic Standards that contain disclosures for impacts related to economic, environmental and social topics.

Tool designed to help organisations measure and manage their impact on workers, community, environment, and customers.

Use this resource to:

• Identify sustainability topics: Fill in the online questionnaire to understand performance on sustainability topics that are likely relevant to manage, based on the organisation’s size, sector, and geography. B Lab’s questionnaire is developed through research and public consultation, and so provides an evidence-based starting point for identifying sustainability topics to measure.
• Measure sustainability performance: Use the B Impact Assessment as a set of metrics. The questionnaire enables organisations to quickly get started collecting information on performance on sustainability topics that are likely relevant to manage, based on the organisation’s size, sector, and geography.
• Assess impacts: Fill in the questionnaire to track change in performance over time. Each question is scored – some with reference to social or ecological thresholds – to help the organisation determine whether it is performing sustainably on that topic.
• Benchmark: Compare performance with peers on each sustainability topic or as a whole organisation. If an organisation scores 80 points or above on the questionnaire, it can apply to be certified as a B Corp. The tool provides guidance to help organisations improve their score every year, and all B Corps must update their responses to the self-assessment to re-certify every three years.