The UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework

A: Since the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were endorsed by the UN in 2011, we have been very focused on implementing them. In 2012 we adopted our human rights policy and created a human rights strategy and vision. We worked continuously to integrate our human rights approach better and further across our business and v... alue chain. A few years ago we participated in consultations on the UNGP Reporting Framework, and already at that time we thought the Framework was interesting. It provided an adequate way - a way aligned to the UNGPs - to report on our human rights work. The Reporting Framework felt like a good opportunity for us to benchmark ourselves on how well we are implementing the UNGPs. The Reporting Framework is a chance for us to see if we are 'walking the talk' - actually living up to our commitments on human rights. Q: What have you learned from the process of using the Reporting Framework? A: The entire process of defining our salient human rights issues was a learning process for us. We have done a materiality analysis for a few years now, and we review it regularly. But the materiality analysis is not very specific to human rights issues. The exercise of determining our salient human rights issues has been a great experience for us. It's a real help to sit down internally and also with external stakeholders to discuss how we look at our actual and potential impacts on people in the value chain, and pinpoint areas we should focus on. We confirmed that some salient issues we have been working on we should continue to work on. We also realized that some salient issues, which were already to some extent addressed in our programmes on human rights, need more attention. The real added value of using the Framework has been reporting in a very straightforward manner our salient issues, stating how we define them, and stating where in the value chain we think they are at most risk. In previous reports we have talked about challenges, but with the Reporting Framework we can ...Read More