AIM-Progress and Proforest published a practical primer on Humanising net zero targets - how to bring people and their rights into corporate climate action (May 2025). It addresses how companies can align their climate strategies with their human rights responsibilities.
Human Level’s Take:
- Human rights and climate change don’t exist in siloes - they’re intrinsically linked
- This link becomes especially clear in the way companies approach climate mitigation and adaptation. A decarbonisation strategy that overlooks its impact on people can unintentionally worsen labour conditions or create new human rights risks. Similarly, adaptation measures that ignore human rights - such as shifting sourcing regions or automating labour-intensive roles to tackle heat stress - can undermine livelihoods
- So, what’s the alternative? An integrated approach that considers human rights alongside climate action. This not only helps reduce emissions but also protects people’s rights, strengthens livelihoods, and builds more resilient, low-emissions supply chains. It’s a strategic win-win that allows companies to meet their human rights and climate commitments
How can companies put this into practice?
- Establish a clear internal or public commitment to integrating human rights into climate strategies and Just Transition planning, ideally at board level. Set internal policies and objectives, engage all relevant departments, and create or leverage governance structures to ensure coordinated collaboration between human rights and climate teams for a unified strategic approach
- Conduct an integrated human rights and climate risk assessment of its supply chain and focus on priority areas for action
- Develop integrated sector strategies and targets within responsible sourcing efforts — combining climate mitigation, adaptation, and human rights for key commodities and regions. This means close collaboration between human rights and climate teams to design interventions, allocate budgets, develop KPIs, consult with stakeholders (including smallholders, workers, and Indigenous Peoples), and put in place grievance mechanisms
- Work with peers on mitigation and adaptation programmes where collective industry risks are highest
- Use robust monitoring and verification to track progress on climate and human rights KPIs. Be ready to adjust course if needed - and act quickly to address any grievances that arise
Some key takeaways:
- The business case for integrating human rights and climate: There are intrinsic links between climate, people and nature, with impacts on one affecting the other two. While companies have found it easier to integrate climate and nature considerations, the same cannot be said for climate and human rights. However, the business case for integrating human rights considerations into climate actions is emerging, which is as follows: 1) supply chain resilience. In light of changing climate conditions, focusing on the resilience of communities and producers within supply chains is increasingly a business imperative; 2) protecting against reputational risks. Incorporating human rights and Just Transition principles into climate roadmaps can prevent unintended consequences for vulnerable stakeholders, avoiding reputational risks and grievances from affected parties or campaigning organisations; 3) regulatory compliance. Integrating climate and human rights considerations helps companies prepare for compliance with laws and regulations such as the EU Taxonomy Regulations and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) - which emphasise the importance of integrating human rights and environmental considerations; 4) access to finance. Investors use ESG benchmarks, such as those from the World Benchmarking Alliance, which link climate action and human rights. An integrated approach helps companies meet these metrics and secure continued access to finance; and 5) strategic efficiency and synergy. Integrating human rights into climate action planning creates efficiencies and synergies by benefitting climate targets and workers, farmers and Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This also allows for more effective monitoring and reporting of climate and human rights KPIs.
- A unified approach for business action: Climate mitigation and adaptation efforts can either directly impact human rights or impact the broader socio-economic conditions that generate human rights risks. Therefore, an integrated approach is needed to address climate and human rights cohesively in a company’s supply chain. A narrow approach to climate mitigation measures (which does not consider impacts on people) can cause or exacerbate rights violations, and worsen labour pressures in order to achieve lower emission products. In comparison, a long-term integrated approach to climate mitigation measures (which considers impacts on people) not only reduces emissions but also avoids human rights risks or deteriorating livelihoods. It addresses preexisting vulnerabilities, builds safeguards for salient risks and ensures sourcing decisions do not exclude smallholders. A narrow approach to climate adaptation measures (which does not consider impacts on people) can impact livelihoods due to shifts in sourcing regions and automation in outdoor industries as a response to heat stress. In comparison, a long-term integrated approach to climate adaptation measures (which considers impacts on people) supports communities in production areas, ensures smallholder inclusion, and avoids unintended consequences. In short, a narrow response to climate change risks reduces emissions but can cause risks to brand reputation, supply chain resilience, social license to operate, and ability to deliver on human rights commitments. A long term integrated approach to climate change risks (which considers impacts on people) can lead to resilient and low-emission supply chains which also supports delivery on human rights commitments. (See the diagram below for an illustration of these different corporate approaches to climate change).
- Actions companies can take: To fully integrate climate action with human rights, companies are recommended to: 1) establish integrated commitments and governance. This involves establishing a clear internal or public commitment on the integration of human rights into climate strategies and targets, or Just Transition planning, ideally at the board level. In addition, it involves developing internal objectives and policies to inform the setting up of governance structures and internal coordination mechanisms to achieve integration between climate and human rights teams. All departments relevant to climate and human rights strategy and implementation, including sustainability/climate, operations, procurement and human rights, should be involved in the process. It also means setting up governance structures or leveraging existing ones, as well as planning internal coordination, to facilitate strategic and operational collaboration and synergy between human rights and climate teams to ensure a unified approach; 2) conduct an integrated human rights-climate risk assessment of suppliers and supply base. This can involve identifying priority commodities/raw materials and sourcing regions where there is an intersection of high emissions and climate change multiplying and compounding existing risks to vulnerable people - and prioritising these areas for integrated action; 3) develop sector strategies and targets within an integrated responsible sourcing strategy, including integrated climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for priority commodities/raw materials and regions. This can include bringing together the climate and human rights teams to collaboratively identify interventions, allocating budgets for climate mitigation efforts aimed at achieving decarbonisation targets, and developing adaptation plans for human rights risks, informed by climate risk modelling. It can also involve jointly designing KPIs to monitor progress, outcomes and impacts of interventions in key sourcing regions in the context of climate mitigation and adaptation targets. In addition, it can include conducting consultations with producers (including smallholders), workers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities representatives before rolling out interventions and building in grievance channels to address any issues; 4) align and collaborate with peers on mitigation and adaptation programmes where collective industry risks are highest; and 5) carry out adaptive management and course correction. This means conducting robust Monitoring, Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MMRV) for key climate and human rights KPIs on a periodic basis after rolling out integrated interventions in priority areas. It also means adapting and modifying the approach if the interventions are not progressing towards desired outcomes for climate and human rights. Furthermore, it involves promptly addressing any human rights grievances from impacted stakeholders flagged through grievance mechanisms.
