The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) released the results of its 2026 ‘people’ benchmarks, including the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, Social Benchmark, and Gender Benchmark and Assessment (January 2026). For broader insights from the WBA drawn from all its 2026 benchmarking, you can read our summary from last week here.
Human Level’s Take:
- The World Benchmarking Alliance’s (WBA) analysis of company performance on ‘people’-related issues shows mixed results. Overall social performance across global business is low: among the 2,000 largest and most influential companies, average social performance is just 20/100, with limited investment in social issues and weak inclusion of rightsholders in risk assessment and decision-making.
- Positively, human rights performance is improving among the highest-risk sectors: 80% of companies in these sectors have strengthened their human rights practices since the previous benchmarks in 2022-2023, but 20% of companies have stalled or regressed and average performance is still middling (53.7 out of 100).
- The strength of human rights due diligence is inconsistent. Board-level oversight of human rights is high (75%), but only 10% of companies in high-risk sectors assess how their business model can have human rights impacts — suggesting a need for better embedding of human rights commitments into the core business.
- Similarly, supply chain approaches among these companies remain mostly contractual rather than systemic. Most companies (87%) include human rights clauses in supplier contracts, but far fewer (39%) adopt responsible purchasing practices that would enable suppliers to improve conditions in practice.
- On specific issues, like gender equality, progress is happening but it tends to be uneven and is still superficial. For example, overall gender scores remain low (18.9/100); there is limited data transparency; gender balance is mostly limited to board level; and meaningful engagement with workers and affected stakeholders is uncommon. While the large majority of companies have adopted policies on violence and harassment and require suppliers to do the same, WBA finds that there is a ways to go on integrating these policies into business practices.
- What do these results signal for companies? The biggest takeaway is that robust human rights due diligence — not just policy-setting, but also embedding respect for human rights and acting on impacts — would go a long way towards helping companies meet their social performance goals and emerging regulatory expectations.
- Integrating human rights policies and considerations into the core business allows companies to go beyond policies on paper to systematically address human rights across their entire business and in the value chain.
- To ensure that commitments to human rights are consistent across the full value chain, WBA’s findings also point to an opportunity for companies to invest in strengthening the human rights performance of suppliers (including by incentivising and supporting them to respect human rights in their own operations and supply chains).
Some key takeaways:
- Highest-risk sectors are showing progress on human rights: The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) evaluates 105 companies in five high-risk sectors: food and agricultural products, apparel, extractives, ICT manufacturing and automotive manufacturing. The benchmark scores against five measurement areas that assess how businesses respect human rights in their operations and supply chains. Overall, the average score for companies was 53.7 out of 100. Since the last CHRB reports in 2022 and 2023, 80% of companies have improved in their human rights practices, although 20% have backtracked or stalled on progress. When it comes to embedding human rights into the business, there has been a significant increase in the number of companies reporting board-level review of their human rights strategy: 75% in 2026 from only 47% during the last round of benchmarking. At the same time, only 10% of companies currently assess how their business model can have an impact on human rights, limiting their ability to conduct strong human rights due diligence. When it comes managing human rights in the supply chain, the CHRB shows that a majority of companies (87%) embed human rights in supplier contracts, but only 39% have put in place responsible purchasing practices commitments, like fair prices and regular payment terms that help to create an enabling environment for suppliers to strengthen their human rights practices.
- But overall social performance is low: The Social Benchmark scores the 2,000 most influential companies in terms of impact and size according to their performance on 18 core social indicators (the indicators are integrated into all WBA benchmarks). The average score of companies was 20 points out of 100, showing that many companies are not investing resources in social performance. Overall, European companies are outperforming other regions, with the top 20 companies on the benchmark headquartered there. By contrast, the previous benchmark had a more diverse set of top performers, coming from Canada, Morocco, Singapore and the U.S. When it comes to human rights, only 10% of the 2,000 companies are currently addressing human rights risks in their supply chains, and only 14% of the companies in the highest-risk sectors. In addition, companies are not meaningfully including rightsholders in their decision-making. Only 13% of companies involve affected stakeholders in assessing human rights risks, and only 4% involve them in decision-making to respond to issues. Finally, as the WBA also flagged in its overarching 2026 analysis, fewer than 5% of companies are paying living wages to their workers. Four out of five of the companies who pay living wages are headquartered in North America or Europe and fewer than 3% of companies report that they support suppliers in paying living wages, leaving a large segment of global workers behind.
- Gender equality shows mixed progress across sectors: The WBA conducts two review processes on gender, recognising it as a crucial underpinning of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring respect for human rights in business. The Gender Assessment analyses 2,000 companies on 51 gender-related indicators across five areas: governance and strategy, representation, compensation and benefits, health and wellbeing, and violence and harassment. Among its key findings, WBA reports that consumer-facing sectors (including apparel & footwear, electronics, personal & household products, and pharmaceuticals & biotechnology) have the highest average total score, compared to other types of companies; the overall average score of assessed companies is 18.9 out of 100, pointing to significant gaps. For example, unpaid care is an inconsistent issue, with many companies offering flexible work, childcare and family support, but relying on sometimes-inadequate local laws instead of seeking to set higher standards when it comes to parental leave. In addition, less than 25% of companies report sex-disaggregated data, which makes it difficult to detect progress on gender equality, the pay gap, promotions and grievances. When companies do achieve gender balance, it usually happens at board level but is not necessarily replicated across other levels of leadership in the company. The second assessment, the Gender Benchmark, takes a deeper dive into the practices of 105 companies in apparel and food and agriculture, two sectors with a high potential for positive and negative impact on gender equality. Among this set, the average score is higher at 24 out of 100. Companies headquartered in Europe lead in progress on gender equality, but companies in East Asia and the Pacific have improved the most since the previous benchmark in 2023 — surpassing companies headquartered in North America. When it comes to engagement, less than 25% of companies engage their workers and or external stakeholders on gender-related issues. Even among those that do, many do not report taking action to integrate this feedback into their policies or practices. Positively, companies are increasingly focusing on preventing violence and harassment in their operations and supply chain. Almost all of the assessed companies have policies in place and require suppliers to do the same, although WBA finds that there is an opportunity to ensure policies are centred on those impacted and that they are fully embedded throughout the company.
