Human Rights Best Practice Module Fact Sheet
The Human Rights Best Practice Module (Human Right Module), which is free for suppliers, has been developed by givvable's team of sustainability experts and based on global best practice indicators.
Suppliers that have completed the module earn a tag for their profile boosting visibility in corporate and government procurement processes.
1. What are human rights and how can businesses impact them?
Human rights are inherent in all human beings and every individual is entitled to enjoy human rights without discrimination. Examples of human rights include the right to: freedom from
slavery, freedom from discrimination, a fair wage, safe and healthy working conditions, and to form and join trade unions.
Organizations can impact the human rights of their employees, their supply chain workers or communities around their business operations either positively or negatively.
Organizations may be involved in adverse human rights impacts by:
- causing the impact through their own activities;
- contributing to the impact through its own activities – directly or through an outside entity; or
- being involved because the impact is caused by an entity with which it has a business relationship (e.g., a supplier) and is linked to its operations, products or services (UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights).
All organizations, no matter their size, should respect human rights and be able to demonstrate how they are doing this. In many cases, respecting human rights is a legal obligation.
Organizations should consider the most salient human rights – that is, the human rights that are at risk of the most severe negative impacts – as well as other human rights risks. Risks to salient human rights are where organizations usually concentrate their primary efforts.
2. What is the 'Human Rights - Best Practice Module' and why should I do it?
Around the world, there has been an increase in regulation related to human rights. This has included human rights due diligence and modern slavery reporting requirements. These developments have implications for reporting entities as well as the organizations that supply to them who will need to provide more information on their policies and practices for identifying and managing human rights risks.
All organizations should conduct risk-based due diligence on their own operations and their supply chains. Due diligence should be tailored to the company’s size, context and the severity of adverse impacts. Due diligence should be ongoing and responsive to changes for the business and also the external regulatory environment.
givvable’s Human Rights Module includes a series of best practice indicators for identifying, assessing and addressing human rights risks and impacts.
The Human Rights Module supports organizations to:
- Understand the policies and practices that reflect best practice and demonstrate to customers that they are taking action to build awareness. Businesses and governments screening supplier profiles will be able to identify whether a supplier has completed this Module.
- Identify areas of alignment with best practice as well as gaps and opportunities for improvement.
- Complete a self-assessment that can be provided (with consent) as part of givvable’s Best Practice Assessment, to their customers (see section 3 below).
The Human Rights Module also includes a section on Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Indigenous Peoples are entitled to universal human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, which recognize their status as culturally distinct and self-determining peoples, as well as the multiple challenges they have historically faced. Customers, investors, employees and other stakeholders increasingly expect businesses to identify, prevent, mitigate, and address impacts on human rights, including Indigenous Peoples' rights.
3. How will my responses be used?
givvable provides automated Best Practice Assessments on suppliers, which are automatically populated based on a supplier’s credentials. Where a supplier does not hold credentials, or where the credentials cover some, but not all, of the best practice criteria, the Best Practice Module can supplement automated assessments with the consent of the supplier.
givvable seeks consent from each organization completing the module before using its responses to supplement an automated assessment of its business.
Organizations that complete the Human Rights Module will receive a ‘givvable: Human Rights – Best Practice Module’ tag, which will appear on their givvable profile until the end of the following calendar year.
4. Where can I find more information on human rights and how organizations can manage human rights risks and impacts?
United Nations / UNGC
- UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
- UN - The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights
- United Nations Global Compact Business & Human Rights Navigator
- United Nations Global Compact Decent Work Toolkit for Sustainable Procurement
- GNCA Modern Slavery Risk Management – A playbook for Australian SMEs to identify, manage and mitigate modern slavery risks
OECD
Other useful resources
5. Where can I access training materials?
Go to givvable’s Supplier Engagement Portal’s 'benefits' page for information on exclusive offers from our partners to fast-track your sustainability journey and earn tags for your business.
6. How can givvable help?
givvable can help you assess your suppliers on human rights and modern slavery:
- VET potential suppliers for actions and initiatives related to respecting human rights and preventing modern slavery.
- SCREEN existing suppliers for: (i) materiality, including relevance, risk and mitigating actions; and (ii) supplier action and inaction on human rights.
- DEEP DIVE on high-risk or material suppliers using givvable’s automated Best Practice assessment.
- ENGAGE suppliers on best practices to address human rights risks with our free Supplier Engagement Portal and Human Rights Module.
Want to learn more? Contact us.