What does good human rights due diligence look like?
In today’s globalised economy, companies face growing pressure to uphold and protect human rights both in their own operations and across their supply chains. Regulatory developments and evolving stakeholder expectations have made human rights due diligence (HRDD) a core part of sustainable business practices.
But what does effective HRDD look like in practice? How do industry leaders approach the challenge of identifying, preventing, and addressing human rights within their complex supply chains? Over the last three months, 2Impact has conducted an analysis of industry leaders according to the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark while applying criteria based on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct and the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. This article compiles the central best practices identified and offers insights into how companies can move beyond compliance and embed human rights in meaningful and systemic ways.
1. Governance through cross-functional teams
A common challenge in implementing HRDD is that responsibility often becomes siloed within sustainability teams or fragmented across departments, which can lead to a difficult implementation process and gaps in accountability. Therefore, one of the clearest signs of effective governance is the establishment of cross-functional teams. These teams are often structured as human rights councils, committees, or working groups and include members from sustainability, procurement, legal, and operation departments. They meet regularly, report to senior leadership or the board, and are responsible for overseeing HRDD implementation while monitoring emerging risks and embedding human rights into business decisions. The teams serve as internal accountability mechanisms by ensuring the regular (often quarterly) review of a company’s human rights performance. This is especially important as human rights risks are inherently cross-departmental. Correctly addressing them requires collaboration between departments and ensuring shared ownership of outcomes. Therefore, cross-functional governance structures are essential for HRDD implementation and integration into business processes.
2. Supply chain mapping and traceability
Another element of effective HRDD is knowing where your risks are. The most advanced companies have started mapping their supply chains in a detailed way by categorising their suppliers by tier, product category, location, and risk profile. This process often includes the use of external data and collaboration with NGOs to analyse country- and industry-specific risks. This level of visibility throughout the value chain enables organisations to prioritise high-risk relationships, design strategies to monitor existing risks, and engage with their suppliers in a more effective way. Digital tools play an important role in the mapping process: some firms have started using open-source platforms to publicly share supplier data, which contributes to industry-wide transparency. This enables stakeholders to scrutinise the sourcing practices of corporations, which demonstrates transparency and functions as an external trust-building measure. Other tools include due diligence platforms that identify and categorise suppliers and inherent risks as well as consolidating performance data to create a comprehensive overview.
3. Supplier engagement and continuous monitoring
After identifying high-risk suppliers, products, and regions, industry leaders engage with their suppliers to reduce the present risks and to mitigate the adverse impacts. Instead of relying on top-down enforcement, many companies use a collaborative approach by actively working with suppliers to build capacities and develop capabilities to address human rights concerns. This includes the collaborative development of Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) to resolve identified human rights issues. These can include specific milestones, timelines, and monitoring mechanisms with the most common approaches being targeted training, capacity building tools, and facilitating access to third-party resources. To track the progress of the supplier engagement process, companies need to continuously monitor the implementation and effectiveness of these programs. The analysed corporations use a variety of monitoring tools such as traditional third-party audits which involve supplier scorecards and rating systems, performance KPIs, digital risk and scanning tools, and worker voice mechanisms.
4. Worker voice mechanisms
While audits have been seen as the traditional tool for determining whether a supplier is compliant or not, leading companies have started moving beyond audits to include the direct input of affected workers. Worker voice mechanisms give workers within the supply chain an anonymous, safe, and direct channel to share concerns or potential human rights abuses. These mechanisms include multilingual hotlines, mobile-based surveys, online grievance portals, in-person feedback sessions, or social media-based channels that are adapted to regional standards. An essential aspect here is the use of clearly defined metrics to measure the success of this method: industry leaders measure the amount of complaints and the percentage of issues raised that are resolved within a set timeframe, set a satisfaction score related to the handling of complaints, and track the number of improvements based on worker feedback.
5. Remediation efforts
One of the most central aspects of human rights approaches from the perspective of a rights-holder is how companies respond when harm occurs. Remediation moves the conversation from prevention and monitoring to accountability, repair, and restoration. The most advanced remediation processes include direct consultation with affected rights-holders in the design of remedies as well as the development of digital tools to support the identification, classification, and tracking of affected people in complex cases. This enables a detailed remediation development process that is appropriate, effective, and tailored to the needs of the rights-holders. Based on this, specific remedies can include financial elements, such as monetary payments to affected individuals, cash payments to restore lost income or livelihood, or in-kind compensation (e.g. food, shelter) as well as non-financial aspects such as formal apologies, rehabilitation services, and access to education or training.
Conclusion
The practices outlined above demonstrate how leading companies implement HRDD in response to evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations. Effective governance includes the establishment of cross-functional teams that meet regularly while detailed supply chain mapping enables companies to identify human rights risks. Engaging with suppliers, establishing monitoring systems and using worker voice mechanisms enable companies to continuously prevent and address the identified risks. When harm does occur, a collaborative and appropriate remediation process should ensure that individuals are supported through financial and non-financial measures. As HRDD becomes an essential component of sustainable business management, these practices provide a valuable reference point for organisations seeking to strengthen their own approaches and contribute to more just global value chains.
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