CSR manuals
A guide for integrating human rights into business management
Human Rights in CSR: A practical guide
Authors:
Publisher:
Global Compact, 2008
While human rights continue to be the primary responsibility of governments, companies can do a lot within the context of their own business to support and respect human rights. Being proactive on human rights can make good business sense, as well as being the right thing to do.
However, human rights is one of the most challenging areas of corporate responsibility for companies to address. This publication offers practical guidance to companies that want to take a proactive approach to human rights within their business operations. It is principally for business leaders and managers in large and medium-sized enterprises, private and state-owned, who would like to develop their understanding of human rights in business practice.
The Guide is based on a conventional management system. It follows the Global Compact Performance model, which is a map for responsible corporate citizenship.
The model allows business to implement the Global Compact principles without undermining their other business goals. The Performance Model was built on practical experience, identifying methods that actual companies followed to mainstream the Global Compact principles into their own business operations and activities.
This Guide is intended to be a technical manual and a hands-on toolkit to help any company integrate practices consistent with human rights standards into an existing management system. It is made up of seven elements common to most management systems:
- Strategy
- Policy
- Processes and Procedure
- Communications
- Training
- Measuring Impact and Auditing
- Reporting
‘The Getting Started’ section identifies the initial steps a company should take to implement the performance model, and in the Appendices at the end are given tools and resources which several companies have found to be helpful in bringing human rights into their businesses.
The examples in this Guide illustrate how aspects of the model have been implemented and are designed to inspire other businesses. The human rights processes and procedures are ongoing projects for the companies concerned.
