Meaningful and appropriate stakeholder engagement is increasingly important for companies, driven by recent regulations such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) as well as the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG). One effective way to engage deeply with a broad range of stakeholders and rightsholders, and to identify and mitigate risks and impacts, is by conducting Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs).
HRIAs can be a key element of a company’s human rights due diligence efforts. They help understand and address impacts on people related to specific projects, activities, rightsholder groups, human rights issues and/or specific country contexts. While there is no universal standard for HRIAs, international good practice guidelines and tools from organizations such as the Danish Institute for Human Rights and Oxfam provide valuable guidance.
When does an HRIA make sense?
Identifying if, when and how to conduct an HRIA depends on your business context,including sector and regions of operation, business activities and risk exposure. In general, assessments of human rights risks and impacts can take various forms, from abstract risk mapping to concrete risk analysis and in-depth HRIAs.
Start by prioritizing human rights risks across your business activities and value chains, using a robust and comprehensive risk analysis method. Following a risk-based approach, consider an HRIA for salient human rights risks where deeper understanding of risks, impacts, local context, root causes, dependencies and affected people is needed to take meaningful action.
Other factors that could trigger a deep assessment in the form of an HRIA include entering a new market or industry, human rights concerns raised by NGOs and human rights groups, potential negative impacts on protected land and indigenous communities and investor requirements. Each company should develop a decision-making process to determine when an HRIA is approriate and beneficial, always bearing in mind that the severity of risks to people should guide this process.
Maximizing the Value of an HRIA
Once you’ve committed to conducting an HRIA, consider how to maximize its value for both rightsholders and your business. Drawing from our experience, collective learning and best practices, I’d like to share key factors to help your next HRIA deliver meaningful benefits for all stakeholders:
1. Engage directly with rightsholders; don’t focus on document review:
While assessing certain documents is important in an HRIA, what is written on paper only tells part of the story. It is crucial to get out there and engage directly with the impacted people – workers, community members, and other rightsholders. An HRIA isn’t just another social audit; it’s about understanding adverse human rights impacts from the perspectives of those affected. Genuine dialogue with rightsholders ensures their concerns and experiences are at the heart of the assessment. You’ll find that this approach not only uncovers critical issues but also helps to truly understand root causes and identify possible starting points to mitigate the impacts.
2. Adopt a landscape approach; don’t limit your engagement:
Engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including those within the business who are duty bearers and those outside of the workplace including affected communities and other relevant parties such as human rights activists, academics, NGOs and rightsholder representatives. Following good practice examples, we recommend identifying and contacting a wide range of stakeholders, including groups or individuals with different or opposing views to enable a holistic assessment. This broad engagement helps build strong partnerships and fosters joint actions for sustainable outcomes by tackling issues together and more holistically. This approach is especially important when leverage of the business itself to address certain impacts is limited.
3. Involve local expertise; don’t overlook cultural and language barriers:
Engaging local consultants and experts is crucial. They provide invaluable insights into the local context, significantly enhancing the HRIA’s accuracy and relevance. The CORE network consists of over 140 local partners and experts, and our experience working with this network shows that collaborating with local teams ensures the assessment reflects the specific realities of the topic and region. Additionally, the importance of language cannot be overstated – communicating in the local language is key for meaningful engagement and mutual understanding. Respecting local customs and understanding cultural codes is essential to grasp the relevant dynamics. It’s not just about gathering data; it’s about ensuring rightsholders are respected throughout the process and feel as safe as possible.
4. Pay attention to capacity building; don’t ignore knowledge sharing:
Beyond understanding the issues, an HRIA is about empowering everyone involved — company stakeholders, rightsholders, and others — with knowledge and skills. Raising awareness about respective rights and responsibilities throughout the process is key. As external advisors, it’s important to involve the commissioning party and other duty bearers, where appropriate and possible, ensuring they are genuinely engaged and ready to act. Fostering a mindset of accountability and ownership is essential to ensure that, ultimately, actions are taken to effectively address identified risks.
5. Ensure sustainable and continuous engagement; don’t treat this as a one-time task:
HRIA is an iterative process that requires ongoing engagement. It’s not a one-off task. The assessment should be revisited regularly to verify that the identified potential and actual impacts have been addressed. Conducting a HRIA is a great opportunity to establish a valuable network of stakeholders, as well as structures and channels for continuous dialogue with rightsholders. This supports the effective implementation of mitigation measures and checks the impact of actions taken. Continuous learning and analysis should be integral to the process, promoting sustained improvement and responsiveness.
My experience in past HRIAs demonstrates that staying flexible throughout the assessment is crucial. Not everything can be planned perfectly, and it’s important to adapt and adjust the approach as situations evolve. This flexibility allows to respond effectively to new information and changing circumstances, ensuring the HRIA remains relevant and impactful.
Considering these key factors will help you to apply a thorough approach and create meaningful and beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders.
We are committed to putting people at the core and support organizations in strengthening their stakeholder and rightsholder engagement. If you’d like to learn more or discuss the topic of HRIA and stakeholder engagement further, please feel free to reach out. We’d love to hear from you and exchange insights!
Stephanie for the CORE team
