The First Wide-Scale Publicly Available Benchmark on Corporate Human Rights Performance
13 March 2017
The first-ever public ranking of corporate human rights performance launched today, seeking to incentivise companies in a race to the top for the moral and commercial advantages of a strong human rights record.
BHP Billiton, Marks & Spencer Group, Rio Tinto, Nestle, Adidas and Unilever are among the small group of leading performers. Costco Wholesale, Macy’s, Grupo Mexico and Yum! Brands are among the much larger group with lower scores.
The methodology the product of two-years consultation with over 400 companies and organisations, and its application another year of research and consultation, the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark is supported by 85 investors, accounting for $5.3 trillion in assets under management. The Benchmark is led by eight organisations, including IHRB, and analyses 98 companies from three high-risk industries – agricultural products, apparel and extractives – but will grow year-on-year to cover the world’s 500 largest listed enterprises.
The Benchmark examines companies’ policies, governance, processes, practices, and transparency, as well as how they respond to serious allegations of human rights abuse. This is done by scoring the companies on 100 indicators across six measurement themes. A small number of companies emerged as leaders scoring between 55-69%, but the results skew significantly to the lower bands. A clear majority, 63 out of 98 companies, score below 30%.
A detailed briefing on the 2017 results is available on the new CHRB website, where you can find the highest and lowest scoring companies in each industry by measurement theme, analysis of trends, and emerging practice.
