Resource Center

Since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011, corporate respect for human rights has become an expected standard of conduct for businesses, discharged primarily through the process of human rights due diligence. However, one of principal weak points of human rights management in companies continues to be a lack of transparency and communication of their efforts, progress, outcomes and challenges. This creates difficulties for stakeholders, including state entities, civil society, investors and consumers, to understand and assess whether and how companies are conducting human rights due diligence and facilitating access to effective remedy. To address these challenges and supplement efforts to undertake qualitative analysis of company sustainability reporting on human rights, DIHR developed a project which aimed to use algorithm assisted analysis of a large number of company reports maintained in the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database against a set of human rights indicators. This discussion paper sets out the methodology used, the challenges and limitations encountered and a summary of what could be seen in the data.