Integrating human rights in your company

Of course your company respects human rights: no child labour in the supply chain, no discrimination, and excellent working conditions. However, the management of risks and opportunities related to human rights has always been difficult, especially for decentralized international companies. With the increasing pressure from stakeholder groups, the company’s reputation and performance on human rights can seriously be harmed. The Ruggie framework provides a policy guideline that helps companies to integrate human rights into their day-to-day business, and enables effective management of opportunites and risks. This is applauded by the investment community, resulting in an increased interest in companies that have applied the Ruggie framework.

The Ruggie framework in the DJSI

In this year’s Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), the relevance of the framework to the assessed company is part of the deliverables in the SAM questionnaire. As some companies have already researched and published their materiality matrix, they understand their stakeholders’ concern towards human rights-related material issues and are able to map their risks accordingly. However, that still leaves the areas of management and performance measurement. More and more companies have adapted the Ruggie framework. Not only because DJSI emphasizes this topic, but also because it proves to be a successful framework for integration into the core processes of the company.

Finch & Beak is proud to have supported several stocklisted companies in the work that lead up to an inclusion of the DJSI. Contact us for more information on how rankings can increase your company’s performance.