The Global Business Initiative for Human Rights (GBI) published the latest note in its “What Good Looks Like” series, focused on Embedding Human Rights in Governance Processes (May 2025).
Human Level’s Take:
- “Successful companies thrive on good governance,” points out the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights (GBI). Strong human rights governance can help proactively address risks to avoid more complex issues down the line, reduce operational, legal and reputational risks, build credibility with employees and stakeholders, and improve long-term business sustainability.
- At the core of good governance is a human rights commitment that is endorsed by senior leadership, supported by accountability and reporting lines to leaders (including the board of directors), clear paths to escalate human rights issues, embedding into other business processes, and adequate resources and capacity for staff responsible for implementing the policy in practice.
- So what can companies do to enhance their human rights governance? GBI highlights a number of key actions, including: (1) integrating clear responsibility and oversight for human rights into daily management practices; (2) using the human rights policy to communicate the company’s commitment and ambitions; (3) building buy-in and confidence of staff to address human rights issues; (4) developing effective trainings and resources on human rights; and (5) creating communication channels and accountability frameworks.
- The brief also offers company practice examples for each of these areas.
Some key takeaways:
- “Successful companies thrive on good governance”: GBI points out that there are a myriad of ways in which strong human rights governance can be a boon to companies. For example, it helps companies to identify and act on human rights risks early on, enabling a stronger, more proactive risk management approach. It can also help companies mitigate negative impacts to reduce the likelihood of more complex issues later on, and reduce legal, reputational and operational risks. Having strong governance frameworks in place can help build a culture of human rights due diligence that becomes embedded in the way business gets done. In addition, good human rights governance can help to increase legitimacy with external stakeholders like investors, customers, civil society organisations and affected people, as well as building employee loyalty and awareness about human rights. It can also signal a commitment to continuous improvement, which is essential for building credibility in a company’s human rights approach. It can also improve sustainability of the business over the long term, by helping to avoid potential disruption and adapt to emerging risks, evolving legal requirements and changing stakeholder expectations. And, it can help improve access to remedy by taking timely action to address impacts to people.
- What are key components of good governance?: One key component highlighted by GBI is having a policy commitment, which is driven by senior management, up to the level of boards and executive management. Companies can benefit from leading the policy development process in-house to build ownership and credibility, with inputs from external experts or stakeholders. GBI emphasises that, although developing a strong policy can be time-consuming, it’s the foundation for good governance and can’t be skipped. Another key component is putting governance and coordination processes in place. This includes building accountability and ownership of human rights by executive leadership while also building awareness through training for senior leaders; ensuring board-level oversight, for example through a designated committee; integrating human rights into risk management processes and other operational processes; and continually monitoring progress to enable continuous improvement. Companies can also consider having an external advisory group to weigh in on human rights considerations. GBI also notes that raising awareness, training and capacity building are essential for effective policy implementation, ensuring all staff understand the basics and key teams have the necessary resources and expertise. For example, companies can create cross-functional human rights networks and embed human rights content into existing trainings and messaging from senior leaders to drive home that human rights is a core part of the way the entire company operates.
- How companies can embed strong governance in practice: The briefing note offers a number of good practice examples across five key areas. First, integrate clear responsibility and oversight for human rights into daily management practices, for example by establishing a standing cross-functional human rights committee imbued with the responsibility to act and escalate issues, and by adding human rights questions into other due diligence processes like supply chain audits, health and safety reviews, and M&A research. Second, use the human rights policy to communicate the company’s commitment and ambitions, for example by reflecting the human rights policy in other company policies and covering human rights issues in core business guidelines and meetings. Third, build buy-in and confidence of staff by tailoring human rights messages for different functions and showing what good likes like by using case studies from the company’s own past (of both leading and lagging practice). Fourth, develop effective trainings on human rights (ideally in-person), prioritising the parts of the business with higher risks. This training can be integrated into other existing trainings, like ethics, onboarding and leadership development. Finally, create communication channels and accountability frameworks, like formal reporting and issue escalation guidelines that apply to all parts of the business. This can be complemented by Informal approaches like regular calls and meetings between the human rights function and other business areas.
