makingit_18_pp6-13_globalforum_print 11/05/2015 12:38 Page 9
GLOBAL FORUM
“If we want to encourage more companies to take action,it is not enough to describe barriers. On the contrary, the focus must lie on distilling actual solutions devised and put in place within companies to overcome those barriers.” Actual solutions The solutions are wide-ranging: from properly framing the ‘business case’ for respecting human rights, to assigning responsibility internally for taking the human rights agenda forward and developing a ‘roadmap’ to ensure that the business is respecting human rights. They include linking a policy commitment to respect human rights to existing internal strategic priorities, and leveraging the buyin that those initiatives already enjoy. Other solutions are mapping human rights risks and looking at the actual impacts, as identified through company grievance mechanisms, from the findings of social performance compliance audit, from complaints from civil society or directly
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commitment into the policies and practices of the company’s daily operations, amidst a diverse set of competing, and sometimes overlapping, business priorities. All of this takes place within a context marked by the complexity of today’s global business models and value chains, and the uncertainty that necessarily accompanies the relatively new paradigm of business and human rights. However, if we want to encourage more companies to take action, it is not enough to describe barriers. On the contrary, the focus must lie on distilling actual solutions devised and put in place within companies to overcome those barriers. In the same issue brief, we therefore set out to share solutions tried and tested by WBCSD members. Overall, we boiled it down to 15 sets of solutions, clustered around five sets of barriers. While some of the examples featured are success stories, the majority are ongoing sets of ideas and practical strategies.
affected stakeholders or from media reports. Yet another solution is to transform human rights policy into practice by having each business function take up its part of responsibility. Peer-to-peer insights are useful for companies at all stages of their human rights journey. Companies that are kickstarting their human rights activities – and trying to determine how best to ‘dive in’ – are looking for a menu of practical steps that might help them get started, steps that their peers have found to be most important and effective. For companies with greater experience, it is more about identifying additional strategies that may help them to overcome persistent challenges. Looking ahead, it is safe to say that the management of human rights issues will become more important to companies in the coming years. Our ambition as a CEOled organization of forward-thinking companies is to ever more strongly link human rights to the wider sustainability agenda. This in turn will enable us to lay the groundwork for moving beyond compliance and audit-based thinking. We will continue to enable “learning by sharing” by featuring both good practices and difficulties faced by companies, articulating how they can put the Guiding Principles into practice, and outlining the most effective actions they can take to prevent, mitigate and address human rights impacts. We will also work with partners to continue to advocate a progressive business perspective in view of creating the conditions where more sustainable companies will succeed and be recognized, including in terms of how they embed respect for human rights across their operations. ● FILIPPO VEGLIO is Director, Social Impact, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
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