Demonstrating Commitment Through Action

By Karen Bergin, director, Citizenship and Public Affairs

To speak with any credibility, companies must demonstrate their commitment to human rights through actions – not just words, says Dan Bross, Senior Director, Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft on the London School of Economics and Political Science's blog. As outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies have a responsibility to analyze their human rights impacts and have processes in place to minimize negative impacts and to seek opportunities to advance their obligation to respect the human rights of their rights holders.

Building trust through goes beyond simply disclosing information. Multi stakeholder frameworks like the Global Reporting Initiative and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights can be enormously helpful in advancing common approaches to complex human rights issues. However it may be possible to have too much of a good thing.

Rather than reinvent the wheel or search for the one perfect set of metrics, companies may get more done by focusing on deeper ongoing engagement with the stakeholders who matter most to them – responding quickly and thoughtfully to external inquiries and proactively seeking opportunities for stakeholder engagement. Read more here.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  thanks