Issue Snapshots

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with rights and wellbeing at work.

Including freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment; freedom from violence or exploitation; Freedom from child labour, forced or compulsory labour, debt bondage, prison labour, or other forms of modern slavery; Human trafficking; Deceitful recruitment

Includes the right to safe and healthy conditions of work; right to refuse unsafe work; occupational hygiene; occupational health and safety; and industrial hygiene.

Includes fair compensation; family living wage/income; equal pay for equal work; eliminating pay disparities; and predictable payment timing.

Includes freedom of association; right to collective bargaining; avoiding protracted negotiations; and work councils.

Includes regular, timely, and transparent worker communications; accessible and transparent worker grievance mechanisms; whistleblower channels; worker surveys and other input and feedback tools; feedback and performance management; career planning; and opportunities for capacity building and personal development.

Includes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI/EDI), or inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA), or justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI), or diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), and other acronyms; freedom from discrimination; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; right to privacy; respect for group rights (such as the rights of Indigenous Peoples); cultural leave; respect for protections for persons with disabilities, children, women and girls, persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, migrant workers, LGTBQIA2S+, older workers, and other groups; and a workforce representative of broader society.

Includes good health and wellbeing; health promotion; right to reasonable working hour limitations; predictable work hours; right to paid time off; compassionate leave; paid maternity/parental leave; elder or child care leave; access to child care; healthcare and wellness benefits; retirement benefits; parental benefits; access to group insurance; reintegration support; health and injury insurance; access to leisure and exercise; flexible and/or remote work arrangements; natural lighting and airflow; accessible design; healthy and culturally appropriate nutrition; and appropriate and safe work from home.

This includes introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with rights and resilience in communities.

Includes stakeholder engagement and rightsholder engagement; consultation; public participation; effective grievance/feedback mechanisms; local community updates and disclosure; support for local community development plans and community aspirations; and respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including sovereignty, right to self-determination, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Includes access to a safe, secure, habitable, and affordable home; land rights; resettlement; sufficiency and cultural suitedness of housing; home ownership and tenure; housing and land availability and affordability; and impacts on property values (both positive and negative).

Includes efforts to support income growth; local hiring; local procurement; local job creation; local investment and business partnerships; positive and negative labour market impacts; local market distortion; worker displacement, including reliance on migrant workers and fly-in/fly-out workforces; local and regional economic development; direct impacts through taxes and salaries; indirect economic contributions in the value chain; induced economic contributions through purchasing community wealth; and labour impacts of automation and AI.

Includes broad access to education; training, skills development, and capacity building; and local, traditional, or Indigenous knowledge(s).

Includes financial inclusion; financial wellness; access to banking (personal and business); access to financing (personal and business), credit, and loan guarantees; access to insurance; and recognition of informal banking systems.

Includes access to healthcare and social services; access to affordable medicines; access to reproductive health services; access to culturally appropriate, safe, and inclusive care (including mental health, addiction and recovery, gender-affirming care); access to elder and childcare; and impacts on disparities in health outcomes and wellbeing.

Includes food security, including access to nutritious, healthy, affordable, and culturally and/or religiously appropriate foods; and food safety, including production, handling, distribution, and storage, antimicrobial resistance, and hormones.

Includes the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (safe climate, safe and sufficient water, clean air, healthy and sustainable food, healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, and a non-toxic environment); access to ecosystems and the services they provide (like clean water, infiltration capacity, or wild and foraged foods); and access to safe and natural publicly accessible spaces for leisure, exercise, culture, and livelihoods.

Includes tangible and intangible cultural heritage (including artefacts, sites, practices, and language); access to cultural activities and artifacts; connection to and between people and places; participative decision-making; and freedom to practice culture.

Includes impacts of business actions on discrimination in communities; impacts on enjoyment of other rights and freedoms such as freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of association, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; impacts on right to privacy; impacts on respect for group rights (including persons with disabilities, children, women and girls, persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, migrant workers, those identifying as LGTBQIA2S+, seniors, and other groups); and accessible design.

Includes communities free from torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment; communities free from (gender-based) violence or exploitation; and communities free from human trafficking, child labour, forced or compulsory labour, debt bondage, prison labour, or other forms of modern slavery.

Includes public safety; emergency services; emergency preparedness and disaster response capacity; company reliance on publicly funded emergency response resources; company-funded and other security forces (and risks related to their treatment of community members); preparedness to respond to threats (e.g. terrorism); access to justice for all; and access to representation.

Includes access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water; access to good hygiene; water access for community and cultural purposes; effective sewage systems and sanitation; appropriate management of waste; recycling and material recovery; company reliance on publicly funded waste systems; and impacts on communities from company operational waste, product waste, and packaging waste.

Includes access to clean, modern, and affordable energy; energy and distribution infrastructure; energy security; infrastructure development, maintenance, and sharing; mobility; transit systems and transportation of people; infrastructure to support trade; transportation/facilitation of the movement of goods; and waterway navigation.

Includes access to information, including local news; access to the benefits of innovation; access to affordable telecommunication services; and telecommunications infrastructure development and access.

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with the issue of governance and ethics.

Including health and safety of products; responsible advertising; warranties; return and exchange; right to repair; and inclusive design of products and services.

Includes data collection (data minimisation; data collection is fit for purpose); data ownership and sovereignty; data governance; records and data management (cybersecurity and data protection; data at rest encryption); prevention of data misuse or unauthorised use; responsible management of personally identifiable information; data use (data comparability; fair and lawful data processing; ethical implications of machine learning; responsible use of artificial intelligence); responsible data retention and disposal; and storage limitations.

Includes respect for rule of law; commitment and action to uphold the International Bill of Human Rights and other rights instruments such as UNDRIP and UNDROP; commitment and action to uphold ILO conventions; respect for the spirit of the law; respect for international conventions and guidelines for business enterprises; respect for the rights of nature (such as rivers granted legal personhood); respect for national legal systems; respect for different ways of knowing; respect for and integration of traditional and community knowledge (including Indigenous science) in decision-making; and respect for local and traditional knowledge holders.

Includes anti-Corruption; anti-Bribery; anti-money laundering; sanctions evasion; terrorist activity financing; prevention and detection; no discrimination or unjust preferential treatment of communities, groups, families; transparency; and enforcement mechanisms.

Includes advocacy and lobbying; political contributions and participation; impact on political processes; donations; participation and funding of industry lobby groups and industry associations; participation in industry standard setting processes; operations in high conflict jurisdictions; support for or condemnation of illegitimate regimes; operations during war, conflict, and coups; and operations in jurisdictions with limited respect for human rights.

Includes tax payment in appropriate (not tax-preferential) jurisdictions; appropriate amounts, timing, and jurisdictions; avoiding base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS); and fair distribution of resources, benefits, and opportunities.

Includes acknowledgement of historic injustices and legacy impacts; awareness building; addressing historic injustices and their legacy; Reconciliation

Includes board oversight of sustainability risk and performance; board sustainability competencies; diversity of senior management and board; inclusive practices at senior management and board level; and board independence.

Includes compensation meaningfully tied to sustainability performance and avoiding excessive executive compensation relative to worker compensation.

Includes comprehensive sustainability disclosure; double materiality (impact and financial); public positions; public goals and progress against them; method and data source transparency; timeliness of information; clear and accessible communication; relevant reporting at facilities level; and provision of raw data.

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with the issue of pollutants.

Including excess nutrients and nutrient pollution from runoff and leachate.

Including acids; caustic substances; disinfectants; glues; pesticides; solvents; flame retardants; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); fluorides; and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Including pharmaceuticals; hormones and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals; and antimicrobials (antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics).

Including lead; arsenic; cadmium; mercury; and other toxic metals.

Including dust; silica; particulate matter 2.5 and 10; diesel particulate matter; smog; microfibres; microplastics; and asbestos.

Including volatile organic compounds (VOCs); carbon monoxide; sulphur and nitrogen oxides; ozone; and odours.

Including microwaves; gamma-rays; and radio waves.

Including unwanted, harmful, or disturbing sounds that affect people and animals.

Including vibrations from operating equipment; ground vibrations caused by explosions or blasting, construction and demolition work, transportation (railway, trucks, airplanes, and road traffic), heavy equipment; seismic vibrations attributed to human interventions such as mining, dam construction, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), and wastewater injection; and structural damage due to vibrations.

Including excessive light and inappropriate light placement, colour, intensity, wavelengths, timing of use, flicker frequency, and/or flashing.

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with the issue of materials and waste.

Including resource efficiency in processes and value chain; waste diversion; zero waste; minimising and addressing process residuals and waste (including tailings; slag; sludge; waste heat; fibres; shavings; fly ash); organic waste (including food waste; animal waste; human waste; paper and cardboard); textile waste; plastics; E-waste; building and construction waste; medical waste; other process residuals and waste; and the social implications of waste on people and communities.

Including managing the product lifecycle; improving product longevity; preventing spoilage; overage; defective products; unsold goods; design for repair and disassembly; circularity; beneficial reuse for surplus; maintaining goods to extend working life; recovery and collections systems; material stewardship; achieving maximum use from resources; and limiting the use of virgin and non-renewable resources.

Including single-use and multi-material packaging; single-use plastics; glass, aluminum, steel, paper and paper board, textiles, and other packaging waste.

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with issues related to ecosystems.

Including avoidance, minimisation, and offsetting (or compensation) of impacts on biodiversity; genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystems diversity; native species composition; invasive species; threatened and endangered species; protected species; management of ecosystems and the services they provide; and culturally and ecologically significant species and landforms.

Including deforestation; land conversions; encroachments and impacts on protected spaces; cumulative and secondary impacts from land use and development; soil and microbial health; regeneration and rehabilitation of natural spaces; land restoration and regeneration; and soil restoration.

Includes rights and welfare of animals under human control; ethical approach to protecting all animals, including freedom from hunger and thirst, appropriate nutrition, freedom from pain, injury, and disease, freedom from fear and distress, freedom from discomfort, and freedom to express behaviours that promote wellbeing.

Introductory resources and reference materials to help acquaint you with the issues related to water.

Including catchment demand; integrated water management; maintaining environmental flows; discharging during peak flows; demand during drought; surface water levels; aquifer draw-down; flooding; long-term "take"; water consumption; and water replenishment.

Including chemical, biological, radiological, and micro-plastic contamination; temperature; turbidity; pH (acidity/alkalinity); biochemical oxygen demand; and colour, taste, odour, and appearance.

Including water stewardship; water risk analysis; integrated watershed planning; integrated water resources management; rights related to water; water access for community, cultural, and navigation purposes.

General resources that provide a high-level understanding of climate change as an issue.

Including scenario-planning; climate risk assessments; climate adaptation planning; investments into resilient company, supplier, community, and public infrastructure; flood prevention and defense; early warning systems; drought-resistant plants; ecosystem restoration; supply chain climate resiliency; disaster contingency and emergency response plans (co-designed with community stakeholders); reducing the impacts of climate-related disasters; supporting regional and national adaptation plans; and climate justice in adaptation and risk preparedness.

Including reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1, 2, & 3); energy efficiency; reducing energy use; renewable energy; energy storage; carbon dioxide removal; climate justice; understanding and addressing historical emissions; and loss and damage compensation.