Connecting the Dots: Identifying Human Rights References in the SDGs and the Links with the UNGPs. Expert input and a good practice example 28 April 2021, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm CEST Human rights are the basis for sustainable development and the driving force behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Over 90 per cent of the SDGs' goals and targets correspond to human rights obligations. As businesses contribute to the SDGs, they make progress on their human rights obligations – they are two sides of the same coin. Every business has an impact on human rights. To the tourism sector, this applies as much as to any other industry. Whether these impacts are positive or negative strongly depends on the responsibility that individual companies take in fulfilling their human rights due diligence according to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Tourism companies have small-scale value chains which come, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises with great responsibility on small shoulders. Even ten years after introducing the UNGPs and in the Decade of Action for the SDGs, many companies are still at the beginning - or in a jungle of possibilities in which it isn't easy to keep track. Mairead Keigher, Business and Human Rights professional at Shift, and Nia Klatte, Regional Sustainability Coordinator & Khiri Reach Executive Director at Khiri Travel, will share first-hand experiences and recommendations to take action. This basic webinar will show overlaps and links between human rights, the SDGs, and the UNGPs: Learn how the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide a way for businesses to contribute to the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Find out how human rights are included in the SDGs and what that means for your business. Identify the first steps to keep an overview and develop a strategy for integrating human rights, SDGs and the Guiding Principles in your business operations. We want to help you to get started. This webinar is explicitly targeted at small- and medium-sized tour operators and is intended to: see a connection: Identify the tourism and human rights reference in each SDG prioritise: Define the most relevant SDGs for your company join forces: Use the potential in working together Please evaluate the Webinar Speaker: As an Advisor with Shift, Mairead Keigher works hand-in-hand with companies and other strategic partners to build capacity to identify, prioritize and mitigate human rights risks. She blends her background in business, technology, CSR and human rights disclosure to help companies fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights. Prior to joining Shift, Mairead worked for 16 years for Microsoft in Europe, the second half of which as Corporate Affairs Manager for Central and Eastern Europe. In this role Mairead coordinated across Microsoft’s 28 Eastern European subsidiaries to engage with governments and bring a consistent policy and corporate social responsibility strategy to life. She participated on behalf of Microsoft in multi-stakeholder initiatives on key topics linked to business and human rights. Prior to this role, Mairead led Partner Marketing across Central and Eastern Europe. Shift is the leading centre of expertise on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Founded in 2011, Shift’s team of experts works globally with businesses, governments, civil society and international organizations to embed the Guiding Principles into practice. I lead a small team focused on improving human rights disclosure: we help businesses understand what good disclosure looks like, and we arm key stakeholders (investors, academia, civil society) with insights on how to interpret what businesses disclose in this field. Speaker: Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Nia Klatte is the Regional Sustainability Coordinator at Khiri Travel and the Executive Director of Khiri Reach Foundation. A sustainable and responsible tourism specialist with a Master’s in Tourism & Social Anthropology from the University of Brighton, Nia combines her passion for sustainable development within the travel and hospitality industry. She’s been working in South East Asia since 2013, as Sustainability Manager in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, before taking on the role as Regional Sustainability Coordinator at Khiri Travel in 2019. Within a year, she had helped Khiri become the very first DMC to be Travelife-certified in all its 7 destinations. Besides her engagement in various sustainability working groups across Southeast Asia, Nia is one of the founding members of IMPACT Vietnam, a network of responsible tour operators promoting sustainable tourism development. Khiri Travel is a Destination Management Company, delivering creative and personalized itineraries with the highest standard of service to tour operators worldwide while being accountable for the triple-bottom line: People, Planet and Profit. Founded in 1993, Khiri now has offices and specialist teams in Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. It is our purpose to make tourism a force for good and to contribute positively to the conservation of communities & destinations we travel to. Moderation: Katharina Stechl is working as Program Manager for the multi-stakeholder initiative and non-profit association Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism. After her studies in Tourism Management at the University of Applied Science in Munich, among other jobs, she worked for the “Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit” (GIZ) in India in the field of urban and industrial development. She has profound experience in the areas of international development cooperation and communication/copywriting. The Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism builds a trusted network of currently 33 tourism stakeholders from six countries. It provides access to expertise, initiates pilot projects and develops learning materials to support the implementation of human rights due diligence in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles within tourism companies, the supply chain and in destinations.