Human rights due diligence (HRDD)
Definition
“An ongoing risk management process that a reasonable and prudent company needs to follow in order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how it addresses its adverse human rights impacts. It includes four key steps: assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting on the findings, tracking responses; and communicating about how impacts are addressed”. 1
International standards establish human rights due diligence as an expectation of all business enterprises and human rights due diligence. This is often integrated with nature-based due diligence and is an emerging area of legislation and litigation at national level. 2 HRDD intersects with biodiversity conservation and management by ensuring that organisations address the environmental dimensions of their operations in a way that upholds human rights. Human rights and biodiversity are fundamentally interlinked and all human rights ultimately depend upon a healthy biosphere. 3 4 Healthy ecosystems, which depend on healthy biodiversity to function, provide people with essential drinking water, clean air and food. Every aspect of life and human health, as well as many non-material aspects of quality of life, are affected by nature's contributions to people. 5
UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework 1
NGFS (2024) 2
UNGA (2020) 3
Geneva Environment Network 4
IPBES (2019) 5
Business relevance
Identifying and engaging stakeholders and rightsholders helps businesses to fulfill their responsibilities as outlined by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) 6 and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (OECD Guidelines), 7 which serve as leading global standards for responsible business practices impacting people and the environment. In turn, this allows companies to align with the expanding range of due diligence regulations and reporting requirements grounded in these international standards. For example, both the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) have requirements for reporting on stakeholder engagement. 8
OHCHR (2011) 6
OECD (2023) 7
SBTN (2024) 8