Rights and Resilience in Communities

UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, also known as the “Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework,” set out 31 principles for states and companies to prevent, address, and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations and the communities around them. The framework is founded on three pillars: the state's duty to protect human rights; the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights; and access to remedy for victims of business-related abuses. This document is a foundational piece for companies on how to respect and advance worker and community human rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This milestone document in the history of human rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. The declaration sets out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, and is widely recognised as inspiring - or making space for - the adoption of more than seventy global and regional human rights treaties.

The International Bill of Human Rights

The International Bill of Human Rights was created to advance the fundamental freedoms and to protect the basic human rights of all people. It is comprised of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and two international treaties: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These covenants identify the responsibilities placed on nation states to respect, protect, and fulfill those rights.

The right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment

In August 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution recognising the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. States, international organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders have a responsibility to “scale up efforts” to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for all.

Corporate Human Rights Benchmark

The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) assesses the corporate human rights policies, governance, processes, due diligence, remediation, and transparency of large, publicly traded companies, as well as their responses to allegations of human rights abuses. The related sector methodologies currently cover the apparel, automotive manufacturing, extractives, food and agricultural products, and ICT manufacturing sectors, but provide helpful insights into what’s considered leading practice no matter what sector your company operates in.

The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights: An Interpretive Guide

This companion guide to the UN Guiding Principles provides additional background information, interpretation, and explanation of the UNGPs, to help ensure companies have a full understanding of the objectives and intent of the principles.

Corporate human rights due diligence – Getting started, emerging practices, tools and resources

This report by the Working Group on Business and Human Rights focuses on emerging and leading approaches for corporate human rights due diligence and includes learnings and practical insights, recommended actions, good practice approaches, factors that enable change, and a range of tools and resources for those tasked with human rights due diligence oversight or implementation.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is an excellent resource for advancing the transparency of your company's human rights-related activities. This global business and human rights knowledge hub provides a wide range of briefings, reports, and the latest news and assessments on key human rights issues and explains their impacts on peoples and business. Their Resource Centre digital platform features company pages and dashboards which highlight allegations for over 20,000 companies and includes financial information, key data points based on corporate policies, and scores from prominent civil society benchmarks. They also track and highlight company responses to allegations of misconduct in their Company Response Mechanism.

The Social Foundation: 'A Safe and Just Place for Humanity'

Kate Raworth's “Doughnut” model is a key framework for understanding sustainability context. Building on the planetary boundaries framework as a 'ceiling', it adds social foundations as a 'floor' and underlines the need to operate in the space between. The social foundation is made up of 11 boundaries that draw attention to communities needing access to basic resources to fulfill their human needs. This access needs to be achieved in a way that does not place undue stress on the earth's resources. The framework is based on the premise that we should be striving to build and maintain social foundations while staying within planetary boundaries.

Social & Human Capital Protocol

Developed by WBCSD and launched by the Social & Human Capital Coalition, the Social & Human Capital Protocol is an excellent starting point for recognising and leveraging people and relationships as drivers for sustainable growth. Divided into four steps (Frame, Scope, Measure & Value, and Apply), the Protocol aims to clarify best practices, boost the positive impacts of business, and improve business credibility by integrating the consideration of social impacts and dependencies into performance management and decision-making. The Social & Human Capital Coalition has also developed case studies, sector guides, and a toolkit to complement the Protocol.

Human Rights Impact Assessment Guidance Toolbox

This toolkit from the Danish Institute for Human Rights offers useful guidance and tools for human rights impact assessment (HRIAs) as part of company due diligence obligations, whether your role is to commission, conduct, or review such projects. The primary focus of the toolbox is on large-scale business projects, but can be adapted for other contexts or business activities. It includes guidance for each phase of the process, for stakeholder engagement, and offers relevant case studies and resources.

Understanding Community Resilience

The success of a company is directly linked to the resilience of the communities where it operates, as well as the resilience of the communities of its workers, its suppliers, and its customers. Increasingly, communities around the world are starting to contemplate their resilience and long-term sustainability. As a result, companies are expected to account for their impacts on community resilience. This guide will help you to understand why community resilience matters, how communities are beginning to approach resilience, and how your company can explore its role in fostering community resilience.

Partnering for Community Resilience: South African Case Studies

Proactive companies are recognising the strategic relevance of community resilience to their short- and long-term success. Community resilience is a positive dynamic between social, economic, and ecological systems that ensures community wellbeing and effective responses to shocks and disruptions, such as fires, droughts, or economic crises. This guide shares five in-depth case studies of companies engaging in partnerships for community resilience in South Africa. We distil the key lessons from these case studies for corporate managers who are planning or implementing partnerships for community resilience.

Applying resilience thinking

Based on the book "Principles for Building Resilience: Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Social-Ecological Systems," this short article introduces seven principles that can help you to better understand and practically apply resilience thinking within your organisation's decision-making.

Navigating the Future of Business and Human Rights: Good Practice Examples

This resource looks at emergent and salient issues and will help bring you up to speed on the future of business and human rights. It includes an overview of trends and good practice in relation to seven key themes: the future of work, climate justice, effective remedy and grievance mechanisms, migrant rights, gender equality, due diligence, and tackling working poverty. It also highlights examples of companies from around the world implementing practical solutions to human rights-related challenges.

UNGPs 10+ A Roadmap For The Next Decade of Business and Human Rights

Known as the “UNGPs 10+” or “next decade BHR” project, This guide from the Working Group on Business and Human Rights was created to take stock of the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) and chart a course for action in the decade ahead. The guide visit eight action areas, including business responsibility to respect, access to remedy, more and better stakeholder engagement, and more and better tracking of progress. Each action area includes insights and findings, outcomes needed for the next decade, and illustrative actions for supporting progress towards the goal. This guide will help you to build your understanding for human rights topics of global concern so that you may better prioritise and allocate your resources for creating positive change.

Indicator Design Tool

Once you have identified and prioritised your human rights risks, you may need help to design an approach to addressing the issue. Shift has created the Indicator Design Tool to support you with developing evidence-based targets and indicators that are focused on preventing, mitigating, and remediating human rights impacts. It employs a 7-step process that is divided into three stages: articulate strategy, account for context, and develop targets & indicators. An in-depth guide is complemented by a template work book.

City Resilience Framework

This report from Arup International Development and the Rockefeller Foundation introduces a framework for articulating city resilience, and was used to create the City Resilience Index. This report was informed by literature, case studies, and fieldwork, and it introduces a range of dimensions, indicators, and goals that will help you to understand the qualities of city resilience and recognise the types of actions that will advance city resilience.

City Resilience Index

Developed by Arup and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, this tool helps users to understand the challenges of assessed cities in a systematic way. The tool allows you to carry out a resilience assessment of your city and generate a resilience profile; view and understand ready-made resilience profiles for various cities around the world; and explore solutions that are currently advancing the resilience of cities. This tool will help you to determine the baseline resilience of cities related to your present and future operations, value chain, and strategy, and will help you to measure progress.

OECD Better Life Initiative: Measuring well-being and progress

The OECD Better Life Initiative can help you to build a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of how peoples lives are improving or degrading in regions around the world, as well as the types of policies and actions that can help to improve the lives of people in communities. At a glance, the Better Life Initiative has created excellent resources - such as their How's Life? report, Better Life Index, and comprehensive surveys - centered around the key themes of reporting, communicating, understanding, developing, building, and adapting. These resources can provide insights into quality-of-life factors that impact wellness; material conditions that are shaping people's economic options; and compare statistics between OECD and partner countries.

Healthy Social Environments Framework

This is an excellent framework for building your understanding of the social environment, which is the underlying social, cultural, and economic context within which communities live, work, and play. It introduces a matrix of core social environment features, core values, tools & facilitators, and outcome categories to highlight the inextricable and mutually-reinforcing connections within social environments. This user-friendly tool can help you with informing, influencing, and making community planning decisions, and can be used to initiate and organise conversations about social connections in communities, as well as to frame and organise presentations, discussions, and proposals on the subject.

Sustainable cities and communities - Indicators for city services and quality of life

ISO 37120 provides definitions and methodologies for a set of sustainable city indicators, and will help you to determine baselines for how cities may steer and deliver services and improve quality of life. If you are looking to contribute to city service performance and to improve the livability of the spaces in which your business operates, this standard is a good place to begin. The standard addresses a range of factor that maintain and advance the resilience of cities, including economics, education, health, recreation, shelter, transportation, and . For each of these factors it provides data and calculations that can be used to measure performance, allow for comparisons between cities, and to communicate best practices.

Sustainable cities and communities - Indicators for resilient cities

ISO 37120 provides definitions and methodologies for a set of sustainable city indicators, and will help you to determine baselines for how cities may prepare for, recover from, and adapt to shocks and stresses. If you are looking to contribute to the resilience of the spaces in which your business operates, this standard is a good place to begin. The standard addresses a range of factor that maintain and advance the resilience of cities, including education, health, safety, energy capacity, climate change adaptation, and infrastructure finance. For each of these factors it provides data and calculations that can be used to forecast emergency preparedness.

ICOR: Community Resilience Frameworks

The ICOR Resilient Community Framework encourages taking a "systems" view to community resilience, with each system contributing to a greater whole. It asserts that there are five primary systems upon which each community functions, with each contributing to the overall resilience or vulnerability of the community: 1) a healthy environment, 2) a responsible government, 3) a strong economy, 4) preparedness for risks and disasters, and 5) quality of life. This is a good resource for helping you to understand the intersections and feedback loops between these facets of resilient communities.

International Human Rights Law: A Short History

The phrase “"human rights”" is a significant and weighty term that is used in both an abstract, philosophical sense and as a manifestation in law. This article provides a comprehensive, high-level explanation of how the international human rights law landscape came into creation and how it has evolved since then.

Social Impact Assessment: Guidance for assessing and managing the impacts of projects

This guide from the International Association for Impact Assessment will help you to understand what is expected in good practice social impact assessment and social impact management processes, especially in relation to project development. It defines and explains social impacts, explores the business case and key considerations, and identifies the phases and tasks of social impact assessments.

Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities

This tool was created to help with disaster resilience planning. The Scorecard provides a set of assessments that allow local governments to assess their disaster resilience; helps to monitor and review progress and challenges in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: 2015-2030; and supports the baseline analysis for preparation of the disaster risk reduction and resilience strategies. The Scorecard provides both preliminary and detailed assessments, and is complemented well by the Quick Risk Estimation (QRE) Tool.

Although created for use by public officials, this resource will help change agents and business leaders to better understand the range of factors that should be considered for disaster resilience planning, and will help you to ask the right questions of government experts in the areas in which you operate.

Quick Risk Estimation (QRE)

This tool from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) will help you to identify and understand current and future risks, stressors, and other threats to human and physical assets in the area where you operate. Using a multi-stakeholder engagement process, as well as the hazards classifications outlined by the UNDRR, the tool provides a dashboard-style risk assessment to highlight primary and associated perils based on user input.

Building Inclusive Communities

The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource that was created to support those working to build healthier communities and achieve social change. This particular chapter  unpacks the concept of inclusive communities and the work that is required to create and preserve them. It can help you to better understand what inclusive communities are; why building inclusive communities is important; when it is most important to build inclusive communities; and how to go about creating them.

2021 CEO Blueprint For Racial Equity

This resource from PolicyLink provides a roadmap that can help companies understand and address the intended and unintended consequences of their products, policies, and practices on people of colour. The guide seeks to advance racial equity by providing key recommendations across three domains of corporate influence: within the company, within relevant communities, and at the societal level. It also includes profiles of companies whose work is advancing equity in these three spaces. This guide is a good starting point for leaders and agents of change who want to advance their business from simply "not racist" to deliberately and credibly "anti-racist."

Women's Empowerment Principles

Established by the UN Global Compact and UN Women, The Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) serve as guidelines that will help your leaders, HR professionals, and change agents to promote gender equality and empowerment in the workplace. Adopting these principles involves six main stages: Consider, Sign, Activate, Engage, Sustain, and Report. Towards helping you understand and progress through these stages, the WEPs has created a comprehensive brochure that features tools, examples, insights, and other resources.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

Adopted by the General Assembly in September 2007 by a majority of 144 states in favour, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity, and well-being of the Indigenous peoples of the world, and elaborates on existing human rights standards and fundamental freedoms. The declaration provides a trajectory for advancing lasting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and it should be used to inform any statements, policies, or practices related to Indigenous Peoples that your organisation is developing and implementing.

Understanding and Implementing the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: An Introductory Handbook

This handbook provides an introductory overview of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It provides a summary on the UN Declaration and explains how it relates to and is recognised within international law, and includes accessible primers on a range of Indigenous rights enshrined within the UN Declaration, including economic and social rights and the right to lands, territories, and resources. This is a good starting point for leaders and agents of change who want to familiarise themselves with the context of Indigenous rights and relations within Canada.

Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

The findings and recommendations of Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Final Report are essential knowledge for those who live and do business in Canada, and especially for those whose business activities immediately affect Indigenous communities.

Drawing on six years of testimony from witnesses, this resource explains the history of Indigenous cultural genocide in Canada, including the legacy of the residential school system and of institutional discrimination and assimilation; explores the challenges of reconciliation against enduring colonial politics and economics; and issues 94 calls to action that your organisation can directly or indirectly advance.

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

The National Inquiry’s Final Report is a landmark document that reveals that persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada. This report is comprised of truths and testimonies from family members, survivors of violence, experts, and Knowledge Keepers, and culminates in 231 individual Calls for Justice directed at governments, institutions, social service providers, industries, and all Canadians.

This document will help to familiarise you with Indigenous people's context of multigenerational and intergenerational trauma and marginalisation when engaging with, investing in, and supporting their communities and businesses.

Business and Reconciliation: An Update Exploring the Performance of Public Companies in Canada

This report from the Reconciliation & Responsible Investment Initiative uses a broad set of indicators to highlight corporate Canada's progress in advancing reconciliation. The indicators address five central themes: recognition of Indigenous peoples in diversity policies and corporate leadership; employment and advancement of Indigenous employees; employment-related training and education; commitment to upholding Indigenous rights; and community investment and support. With this criteria the report provides an analysis of how 78 Canadian companies across a range of industries are equitably engaging with Indigenous Peoples, and includes key findings in relation to hiring, training, referencing Indigenous Peoples in policies, and setting formal commitments to uphold and advance Indigenous rights. This is an important resource for understanding the work that businesses in Canada are undertaking to meet the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action, and may help you to understand some of the approaches that are being adopted to advance reconciliation.

Good Practice Guide: Indigenous Peoples and Mining

This guide from the International Council on Mining & Metals was created to help business leaders and change agents ensure mutually beneficial outcomes through better understanding of Indigenous Peoples, their rights, and how they connect with mining activities. The guide is broken down into four parts: good practice guidance, which explores engagement and Indigenous participation, managing impacts, agreements, and dealing with grievances; a toolkit; case studies; and additional information.

Although this guide was created for the mining & materials sector, it is a worthwhile and relevant read for leaders and sustainability professionals in other industries.

The Practice of FPIC: Insights from the FPIC Solutions Dialogue

Major projects often have major social and economic impacts, and it is important that companies and communities create an open and equitable dialogue that empowers communities to share their concerns, understand the potential impacts, and appropriately benefit from development. This guide from RESOLVE was created to help communities and companies arrive at a shared roadmap for these project decisions related to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). The guide employs a set of Decision Making Milestones that organise dialogue in a practical, intuitive, and iterative way, from pre-feasibility and site exploration to closure processes. This guide can also help readers to identify where gaps in the FPIC process can emerge, and it provides insights, prompts, and resources to benefit the needs of stakeholders and rights-holders.

Decolonize First: a liberating guide & workbook for peeling back the layers of neocolonialism

This workbook by Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee features processes, prompts, and links to resources that can help to guide and shift your framings and actions away from colonial defaults. It addresses topics such as colonial narratives, helping and harm, intention and impact, and reconciliation, and includes an accessible social change framework and a decolonizing process map. This book is a good starting point for critically examining your company's maturity in its decolonizing journey and for creating the space necessary for self-reflection and conscientious change.

The frontline of conservation: how Indigenous guardians are reinforcing sovereignty and science on their lands

Indigenous land defenders often patrol large tracts of land and coast that don't otherwise receive sufficient monitoring from governments. This fascinating article from the Narwhal highlights how Indigenous guardians are leading efforts to catch poachers, document species, and save lives along the coast of British Columbia - all while filling major gaps in knowledge and conservation. This resource can help you to understand the immense (and unique) value that Indigenous communities provide towards protecting natural spaces, and the importance of supporting these efforts as well as Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

Green spaces aren't just for nature - they boost our mental health too

There is very strong evidence to support the positive effects that nature has on physical and mental health, as well as how it boosts aspects of thinking, attention, memory, and creativity. This article highlights the links between wellness and exposure to nature, and particularly for those living in highly developed urban spaces. It explains the specific positive effects that green spaces have on individuals, and may help you to better understand and identify opportunities for advancing the health of your workers and the people in the communities in which you operate.

Plan H - Healthy Natural Environments

This action guide can help you to understand how national environments and health benefits are interconnected, as well as ways for you to support the development of such space. The guide provides a definition of natural environments; explains the role of natural environments in human health and wellbeing; explains the role of local governments and legislation in improving natural environments; and provides examples of local government tools and examples of action from British Columbian communities.

Although this resource is specifically related to the B.C. context, the definitions it includes and the opportunities for engagement that it highlights are applicable to a broad range of natural environments.

The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture

This comprehensive guide from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations presents the first global assessment of biodiversity for food and agriculture worldwide. The report draws on information from 91 country reports to provide a description of the roles and importance of biodiversity for food and agriculture, the drivers of change affecting it, and its current status and trends. It describes the state of efforts to promote the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity for food and agriculture, including through the development of supporting policies, legal frameworks, institutions and capacities. It also explains the needs and challenges of future management of biodiversity for food and agriculture. This resource is an excellent starting point for change agents to build their awareness and understanding of the vital importance of biodiversity to global food systems.

Our food system isn't ready for the climate crisis

This article from the Guardian explains how many of our favourite foods - and the systems which allow them to flourish - are increasingly threatened by the climate crisis. It highlights how agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture are all buckling under the stress of rising temperatures, wildfires, droughts, and floods, and how resilient food systems depend on cultivating and consuming a wide variety of genetically diverse foods. This compelling resource can help you to understand the recent trends in global diets and food species selection, and how communities and industry need to advance the diversity of our crops to prevent near-future food systems collapse.

The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste: The Roadmap

This resource from Second Harvest explains how nearly 9 million metric tonnes of food is lost or wasted by the food industry in Canada each year. The report uses field-to-fork life cycle analysis to show how - and why - food loss and waste occur. This is a good starting point for building awareness around the magnitude of food waste, regardless of geographic context; for understanding the differences between avoidable and unavoidable waste; and for understanding the kinds of immediate and long-term solutions that should be pursued to reduce food loss and food waste.

Wasted Opportunity: Rescuing Surplus Food in a Throwaway Culture

This report from Second Harvest explores food loss and waste across the industrial spectrum in Canada. It can help you to understand the causes and scale of the problem, the implications and opportunities for communities and business, and solutions for positive change that can be amplified.

Although the information here is centred around the Canadian context, many of the recommendations and insights are applicable regardless of geography.

The IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species

Billions of people benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, inspiration, and more. 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions of people worldwide, and more than 10,000 wild species are directly harvested for food. This report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) can help you to understand how the global biodiversity crisis threatens the contributions of these species to humanity, and provides insights, analysis, and tools to establish more sustainable use of wild species of plants, animals, fungi and algae around the world.

This report identifies five broad categories of ‘practices’ in the use of wild species: fishing; gathering; logging; terrestrial animal harvesting (including hunting); and non-extractive practices, such as observing. For each practice, it then examines specific ‘uses’ for these materials; identifies trends and drivers of change; explores policies, practices, and tools to effect positive change; and examines a range of possible future scenarios for the use of wild species.

Sustainable Development Goal #3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals that outline the path to creating a better and more sustainable future for all. This is a good hub for information, resources, and news on SDG #3, which focuses on health and wellbeing. It provides an overview with helpful infographics; information on targets, indicators, and progress; and features relevant publications and events.

WELL Building Standard

This research-informed resource from the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) will help you to create and support thoughtful and intentional spaces that enhance human health and well-being. WELL draws upon the expertise of medical professionals, public health experts, building scientists, and thousands of other practitioners and WELL users to advance the quality of life of workers. The standard addresses ten key concepts such as air, light, thermal comfort, movement, and materials in the workplace, and provides evidence-based recommendations for performance-testing and optimisation.

Driving Co-Benefits for Climate and Health: how private sector action can accelerate progress

This report from Forum for the Future and Walgreens Boots Alliance can help you to understand the potential effects of climate change impacts on public health, as well as the actions that businesses can take to support positive health outcomes. The guidance in this document has been developed from a series of round-table discussions that brought together businesses, NGOs, scientists, government advisors, and philanthropists, with a focus on three intersecting climate and health topics: air pollution, nutrition, and malaria. This resource would be of particular value to sustainability professionals in explaining the business case for action on intersecting climate and health issues; delivering a framework for action to senior leaders; and sharing practical ways to drive positive change within the workplace, supply chain, and communities beyond.

Advancing modern slavery reporting to meet stakeholder expectations

This toolkit was created by GRI and the Responsible Labor Initiative (RLI) to encourage and improve reporting on modern slavery and to support action across the value chain. This toolkit will help change agents to understand why modern slavery has become increasingly important to corporate sustainability reporting, and includes a practical approach for them to report on the issue in alignment with stakeholder expectations. Included are summaries of key slavery-related topics, questions, and concerns; reporting examples; testimonials from reporters and stakeholders; relevant GRI standards guidance; and examples of tools that will facilitate your reporting.

Tackling Modern Slavery in Supply Chains

Slavery exists in all stages of procurement, and as supply chains grow and become more complex, it becomes increasingly challenging to ensure freedom, fairness, and safety in the workplace. This resource will help those who want concrete guidance on how to reduce or eliminate the risk of modern slavery occurring in their supply chains. This guide explores effective standards, risk assessments, audits, corrective measures, and practical advice for engaging with suppliers, as well as a comprehensive collection of relevant tools.

Modern Slavery Act Resources

The Ethical Trading Initiative has compiled various resources to help you understand how your organisation can contribute to the abolition of modern slavery. The website is arranged into six sub-categories including ETI resources such as blogs and training courses; advocacy pieces such as submissions to the Australian and Canadian Governments; guidance and examples, such as a list of published company statements; existing projects, such as the DOL's Child Labor and Forced Labor Program; background research and reports from the ILO, UN, and more; and reports and case studies from a wide range of industries.

Best Practice Series to Eliminate Child Labor in Global Supply Chains

GoodWeave is a team of business-minded social change experts and advocates who are dedicated to ending child labor, forced labor, and bonded labor in global supply chains. Their platform and resources will help you to better understand the issue of child labor in global supply chains and to take meaningful, regimented action that addresses the root causes of child labor. We especially recommend their Best Practice Briefs, which will help you to address effective standard setting; perform inspection and monitoring; map out your deep supply chain; engage in effective remediation; and prevent future abuses.

Social Auditing and Ethical Certification

This brief from Re:Structure Lab can help you to better understand the shortcomings of private tools and schemes intended to detect, address, and prevent forced labour, as well as how these flaws can be addressed. The brief explores how social auditing and certification can be regulated and reformed to eradicate forced labour, and maps out the ways monitoring tools would need to change to play a meaningful role in promoting labour standards.

Sustainable Development Goal #8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals that outline the path to creating a better and more sustainable future for all. This is a good hub for information, resources, and news on SDG #8, which focuses on sustainable economic development and decent work. It provides an overview with helpful infographics; information on targets, indicators, and progress; and features relevant publications and events.

Worker Debt and Inequality

This brief from Re:Structure Lab can help you to better understand how worker debt has become a critical, consistent element of business models configured around forced labour and human trafficking. The brief explains how supply chain workers are routinely paid at or below the minimum wage, oftentimes owing to wage theft, fraudulent deductions, predatory fees, and inadequate legal protection. It also explores solutions for addressing worker debt and inequality, such as alternative forms of corporate accountability mechanisms; reparations for historical injustice; debt relief; and more.

Community Engagement – A Getting Started Toolkit for Exploration and Development Companies

This community engagement toolkit offers practical guidance and in-field engagement support that will help you to build relationships with communities. The tools include a template to track engagement, sample maps to help assess your area of influence (AOI), and a checklist and feedback form to supplement your stakeholder analysis. While the guidance is specific to practitioners in the field of materials extraction, most of the tools - which can be downloaded separately - should be useful to practitioners doing stakeholder engagement in any industry.

International Association of Public Participation (IAP2)

Public input helps organisations make better decisions and achieve stronger social approval. Towards achieving this end, IAP2 Canada - an association of professionals in the field of public participation (P2) - have created resources and training that will help you to improve the practice of public participation, regardless of your geographic context.

Among their resources is IAP2's spectrum of public participation, which will help you to identify your goals and associated commitments to the public. The underlying premise is that public input will help the organisation make a better decision, and with stronger social approval.

Managing Natural World Heritage

This comprehensive resource manual will help your company to manage natural heritage sites within your purview, as well as to support state efforts to preserve such sites. The manual introduces a six-stage framework for the management process: understanding the context of the site; planning site management; studying allocation resources and other inputs; the resulting series of management processes; the outputs; and the conservation impacts or outcomes.

Managing Cultural World Heritage

This comprehensive resource manual will help your company to manage cultural heritage sites in compliance with the requirements of the World Heritage Convention. This capacity-building tool will help practitioners who are directly responsible for heritage conservation and management to strengthen their knowledge, abilities, and skills around defining, assessing, and managing heritage management systems. The manual also introduces a framework for developing, implementing, and monitoring a management plan.

Being an Effective Change Agent

How can you prepare yourself to be a more effective sustainability change agent? This guide was designed to share insights on how change agents can support their CEO and influence thinking on sustainability. It is based on a review of prior academic research on CEO decision-making and combined with the practical experiences and insights gleaned from interviews with over 200 CEOs, board members, and sustainability executives. It explores a broad range of global companies and industries including finance and insurance, material extraction, retail, manufacturing, transportation, logistics, utilities, and agribusiness, as well as a diverse array of ownership structures, including public corporations, privately owned businesses, and co-operatives.

To further support you in bolstering your own effectiveness, we have also developed the Being an Effective Change Agent: Personal Inventory. We encourage you to use this as a tool for reflection, and to help you plan your future personal development.

The Role of Human Resource Management in Corporate Social Responsibility

This is a useful resource if you are looking to partner with HR in your company. This guide provides helpful background research on the connection between sustainability and a variety of HR functions, including recruitment, onboarding, and employee development. It also lays out ten steps that HR managers can take to support embedding sustainability within their organisation, along with examples from leading companies.

Talent, Transformation, and the Triple Bottom Line

This book by Andrew Savitz talks about how sustainability can be incorporated into employee recruitment, selection, onboarding, career development, rewards, and retention. We specifically recommend Chapter 5, which will help you understand how orientation programs at companies now include modules dedicated to CSR and sustainability. After orientation, targeted sustainability programs are also being incorporated across corporate training curriculum.

Reinventing Employee Onboarding

Onboarding has traditionally been about getting new hires to adopt a company’s values. This study questions the traditional approach by looking at what happens when we do the opposite: engaging new employees to think about their strengths and values, and asking them to bring these to the company.

Supporting the Next Generation of Sustainability Leadership

This article from the International Institute for Sustainable Development makes the case for training the next generation of sustainable development leaders, and provides an overview of the types of programs, groups, and training that exist for young sustainability professionals.

What is Skills-Based Volunteering?

This quick primer on skills-based volunteering from Realized Worth will help your organization take a more impact-oriented approach to volunteering. It offers insight into misconceptions about skills-based volunteering, as well as who it's right for and what it looks like in practice.

Employee Engagement and Going Green

Designed for HR managers, trainers, and employees responsible for health, safety, and the environment, this 5-page guide by the Network for Business Sustainability provides ten ways to engage employees in your company’s environmental and social goals. The methods are based on 30 years of academic and industry research by the NBS team and Dr. Stephanie Bertels. In addition to helping readers understand how to educate their workforce on the importance of good business ethics and corporate responsibility, the report draws on case examples from the retail, services, and manufacturing industries.

World Health Organization: Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)

The World Health Organization is the foremost authority on water, sanitation, and hygiene, and is a one-stop shop for fact sheets, data and research, guidelines, technical information, resolutions, and other publications related to understanding and taking action on WASH-related issues within a wide range of industry and community contexts. This is an excellent starting point for both leaders and change agents to build their understanding of WASH-related issues.

UNICEF: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

UNICEF has created a broad array of resources that will help you to understand the challenges and solutions related to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); to the relationship between climate change and WASH; strengthening WASH systems; and WASH in emergencies. As with the World Health Organization's resources, this is an excellent starting point for both leaders and change agents to build their understanding of WASH-related issues.

The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology: WASH Resources

The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) is a Canadian charity and engineering firm committed to building local knowledge and skills on WASH-related solutions that people can implement themselves. Their website includes webinars, workshops, tools and e-modules, and other guidance related to behaviour change; drinking water and sanitation for emergency contexts; aspects of drinking water quality; and more. These resources will help you to understand the challenges in the communities in which you operate, as well as provide practical knowledge and measures for change practitioners tasked with supporting local efforts.

Fiduciary Duty in the 21st Century

This report offers insight into the debate around whether or not fiduciary duty is a legitimate barrier to investors integrating sustainability into their investment processes. It was produced by Principles for Responsible Investing in collaboration with UNEP and the UN Global Compact. The report is based on interviews with over fifty investors, policy makers, lawyers, and regulators.

21st Century Engagement: Investor Strategies for Incorporating ESG Considerations into Corporate Interactions

This guide from Ceres and Black Rock aims to empower investors who are engaging companies on sustainability issues. It explores different tactics (such as shareholder proposals and proxy votes) and outlines methods for asking the 'right' questions. It also includes sample questions investors can ask companies to better understand their approach to sustainability.