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Workshop

Measuring Human Rights Performance: Metrics that Drive Change

April 20 – 21, 2016

Investors, consumers, governments, and the media all are looking for ways to assess and differentiate companies on the basis of their performance on a wide range of sustainability factors, including human rights.

The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and RFKennedy Compass Program at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights will host a workshop, Measuring Human Rights Performance: Metrics that Drive Change, 20 – 21 April at NYU in New York City.

This invite-only workshop brings together a diverse group of creative, ambitious thinkers to debate and discuss alternative approaches to measuring human rights. Participants will be drawn from industry, the investment community, civil society, and academia. The workshop will be organized around six parallel industry-specific working groups on low-wage manufacturing, construction, extractives, agriculture, fishing, and information and communications technology. 

More about the workshop:

Investors, consumers, governments, and the media all are looking for ways to assess and differentiate companies on the basis of their performance on a wide range of sustainability factors, including human rights. In the last decade, a number of initiatives have emerged to address this need by collecting and reporting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. A growing number of investment firms now have staff dedicated to ESG evaluation and are making greater commitments to sustainable investing. Among ESG factors, the “social” aspect remains the least well defined. And within social, human rights is perhaps the most difficult to evaluate, especially when it comes to measuring outcomes.  

Most efforts to evaluate the human rights aspect of “social” in ESG focus on companies’ policies and commitments on human rights. Some initiatives also seek to take into account reports of human rights violations committed by a company in their assessments. Many people now recognize that there is a need for a next level of evaluation that focuses on the human rights outcomes of companies’ business practices. This workshop provides such a focus.

Participants will be asked to help develop a short list of draft indicators of “high road” firms in each industry – an affirmative set of business characteristics or behaviors that are positively associated with human rights.

[ download the draft agenda ]

Invited participants include:

Agriculture
Amazon/Good Guide, Coca Cola Company, Landessa, London School of Economics, Nestle, Oxfam, PepsiCo, Unilever,
Walmart 

Extractives
Barrick, BHP Billiton, Columbia Law School, ExxonMobil,  Harvard Law School, Human Rights Watch, International Code Of Conduct Association, Intel, Newmont Mining, Resource Governance, United States Department of State, Triple Canopy/Academy 

Fishing
Clinton Global Initiative, Concordia, Marine Stewardship Council, Government of Mauritius, Metro Group, Morrisons, National Fisheries Institute, Pacific Andes, Seafish, Sustainabilty Incubator, Walmart, World Wildlife Fund

Information & Communication Technology
AccessNow, AlbrightStonebridge, BetaWorks, DirecTV LatAmerica, Facebook, University of Georgetown, Google, 
Microsoft, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ranking Digital Rights, Yahoo!

Labor Intensive, Low-skill Manufacturing
pple, Brown University, Collegiate Licensing Company, Elevate, Fair Labor Association, Mohammadi Group, New Balance, Nike, PVH Corp, The Cahn Group, University of Notre Dame

Recruitment and Construction
Agility, Amnesty International, ATA-GSS, CH2M Hill, Daruna Development, FairHiring Inc., Georgetown School of Foreign Service – Doha, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Humanity United, Institute for Human Rights and Business, Nardello & Company, Open Society Foundations, QDVC, Tamkeen, The Freedom Fund, Turner Construction Company