What are the Steps in Human Rights Due Diligence?

Human rights due diligence is a continuous, proactive process enabling organizations to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address actual and potential human rights impacts in their operations and value chains. It's an essential framework for responsible business conduct, rooted in international standards like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The core steps in human rights due diligence are comprehensive and iterative, focusing on understanding and managing risks to people. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of these critical steps:

1. Assessing Actual and Potential Human Rights Impacts

This foundational step involves systematically identifying the human rights risks associated with an organization's activities, products, services, and relationships across its entire value chain.

• Identification:
  • Mapping Operations & Value Chain: Understand where human rights impacts could occur, from raw material sourcing to product use and disposal. This includes direct operations, suppliers, customers, and other business partners.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Directly consult with potentially affected groups (e.g., workers, local communities, indigenous peoples) and their legitimate representatives. Their insights are crucial for understanding real and potential impacts.
  • Risk Analysis: Identify specific human rights at risk (e.g., labor rights, land rights, privacy, health, and safety). Consider both the likelihood and severity of the impact.
• Methods & Tools:
  • Human rights risk assessments.
  • Site visits and audits.
  • Consultation with human rights experts and civil society organizations.
  • Review of publicly available information (e.g., news, NGO reports).
• Practical Insight: Prioritize "salient" human rights issues – those at greatest risk of severe negative impact to people – even if the company's contribution to that impact is indirect.

2. Integrating and Acting Upon the Findings

Once impacts and risks are identified, the organization must act to prevent, mitigate, and, where necessary, remediate them. This involves embedding human rights considerations throughout the business.

• Policy & Commitment: Develop or update policies that explicitly commit to respecting human rights, guided by international standards. These policies should be endorsed at the highest level of management.
• Operational Integration:
  • Assign Responsibilities: Clearly define roles and responsibilities for managing human rights issues across relevant departments (e.g., procurement, HR, operations, legal).
  • Develop Procedures: Implement specific procedures to address identified risks, such as enhanced due diligence for high-risk suppliers, fair labor practices, or robust community engagement protocols.
  • Training & Capacity Building: Provide training to employees, particularly those in roles critical to managing human rights risks (e.g., procurement managers, site managers), to ensure they understand their responsibilities.
• Remediation & Grievance Mechanisms:
  • Establish effective grievance mechanisms that allow affected individuals or communities to raise concerns and seek remediation for adverse impacts. These mechanisms should be accessible, predictable, equitable, transparent, and rights-compatible.
  • Provide for or cooperate in remediation where the organization has caused or contributed to adverse impacts.
• Examples:
  • Revising supplier codes of conduct to include stronger human rights clauses.
  • Implementing specific processes for land acquisition to prevent forced displacement.
  • Establishing a confidential hotline for workers to report labor abuses.

3. Tracking Responses

This step involves monitoring the effectiveness of the organization's efforts to prevent and mitigate human rights impacts. It's about ensuring that actions taken are having the desired effect and making adjustments as needed.

• Performance Monitoring:
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Define measurable indicators to track progress in managing human rights risks (e.g., number of supplier audits, grievance resolution rates, employee training completion).
  • Internal Audits: Regularly audit operations and supply chains to verify compliance with human rights policies and procedures.
• Feedback Loops:
  • Continuously gather feedback from affected stakeholders, employees, and other relevant parties to assess the real-world impact of due diligence efforts.
  • Regularly review the changing human rights landscape and emerging risks.
• Practical Insight: Tracking should not be a one-off exercise but an ongoing process that informs continuous improvement of human rights performance.

4. Communicating How Impacts Are Addressed

Transparency and accountability are key. Organizations should communicate externally about their human rights policies, due diligence processes, and performance.

• Reporting:
  • Public Reporting: Publish regular reports on human rights due diligence efforts, findings, and outcomes. This often takes the form of dedicated human rights reports or integrated sustainability reports.
  • Targeted Communication: Communicate directly with affected stakeholders about how their concerns are being addressed and the progress of remediation efforts.
• Content of Communication:
  • Clearly articulate the organization's human rights policy and commitment.
  • Describe the due diligence process undertaken.
  • Detail actual and potential human rights impacts identified.
  • Explain actions taken to prevent, mitigate, and remediate impacts.
  • Share insights on challenges encountered and lessons learned.
• Examples:
  • Releasing an annual Modern Slavery Statement.
  • Publishing a comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report detailing human rights performance.
  • Engaging in public dialogue with NGOs and communities on specific impact issues.

Summary of Human Rights Due Diligence Steps:

By following these systematic steps, organizations can demonstrably work towards respecting human rights, enhancing their reputation, mitigating risks, and building long-term value.