In recent years, companies have ramped up their efforts in the area of sustainable supply chain management. This Good Practice Note is focused on what businesses can do to better support workers in their supply chain, including through supporting workers’ assertion of their human rights. This Note explores some of the good practices, advantages and pitfalls related to working with suppliers and other stakeholders, especially trade unions, to support workers in the supply chain, including in assertion of their human rights.

Corporations increasingly are embracing the dual challenges of maximizing profits while also promoting the protection of human rights. The latter is at the core of corporate social responsibility and it holds the promise of being good for business. Corporate strategic philanthropy plays a central role in this dual mission of profitability and responsibility. This Good Practice Note provides the context for and offers recommendations relating to each of these elements while demonstrating how corporations are using the shift from traditional philanthropy to strategic philanthropy in the most valuable and measurable way.

Community engagement has arisen as a mutually beneficial way to advance human rights in supply chains. In community engagement, companies familiarize themselves and develop relationships with the stakeholders of the communities in which they operate in order to minimize any negative externalities and offer aid and other initiatives that will benefit community members. This Good Practice Note aims to explain some of the critical advantages, pitfalls and good practices related to engaging with and investing in suppliers’ communities.

The first comprehensive set of principles to guide companies on the full range of actions they can take in the workplace, marketplace and community to respect and support children’s rights.

The responsibility to comply with all applicable local, national, regional and international laws is a central tenet of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. Yet sometimes local or national laws pose requirements that conflict with internationally recognized human rights, thereby making it difficult or impossible for business enterprises to meet their responsibility to respect human rights. The goal of this Good Practice Note is to provide business enterprises with a non-exhaustive set of good practices for addressing situations in which local or national laws appear to conflict with internationally recognized human rights.

This guide offers baseline definitions and practical steps that SMEs can take toward effective management of the social, environmental and economic impacts of supply chains.

Serves as a step-by-step roadmap for maximizing the transformative potential of partnerships.

Provides guidance for governments, employers’ organizations and trade unions on working together to achieve sustainable economic and social development.

This guide provides a framework for creating and applying social impact measurements in connection with corporate activities within the communities where companies operate.

Reviews the recent history of such partnerships, and makes recommendations for enhancing their effectiveness and scale.

Explores how donors can effectively support public-private collaboration in order to attract sustainable investments and foster development in the Least Developed Countries. To this end, the report takes stock of existing donor programs aimed at engaging the private sector in development activities, identifies shortcomings and promising approaches, and offers recommendations on how donor programs can attract more public-private collaboration to the Least Developed Countries.

The Guiding Principles seek to provide an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts linked to business activity.