Services

Our strategic advisory services and innovative research projects assist clients to understand impacts and strengthen human rights outcomes

Consultancy & Strategy

Strategic direction

Our advice helps define priorities and strategic objectives through internal engagement, reviewing existing commitments, regulatory compliance assessments, horizon-scanning, and external benchmarking.

Due diligence

We support human rights due diligence processes with transactional, operational and supply chain risk assessments, reviewing existing diligence processes, facilitating discussions with business units, benchmarking against peers and engaging with stakeholders.

Operational support

We provide expert advice on specific situations such as interpreting national labour law, responding to human rights challenges, implementing gender plans and addressing stakeholder complaints. We develop tools and practical resources to help implement policy commitments in day-to-day operational contexts.

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Research & Analysis

Global risk assessments

Our global supply chain risk assessment tools cover 180 sourcing countries, all major human rights themes and key product/commodity sectors enabling detailed understanding of the most salient risks and priority areas for follow-up. These risk assessment tools are used by global corporations, retailers, financial institutions and certification bodies as part of their due diligence processes.

Human rights impact assessments

We conduct human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) on supply chains and operations and have worked in sectors including biofuels, infrastructure, agriculture, aquaculture, resource extraction and manufacturing. Our methodology follows international good practice and rests on contextual research, field engagement with rights holders, stakeholder engagement and saliency analysis.

Policy and research reports

We undertake major research and policy studies for governmental and international agencies on labour markets, employment, gender and human rights questions in major industrial and agricultural sectors worldwide, with a particular focus on transition and developing economies. We have a particular specialism in understanding living wage.

Country risk analysis

We compile detailed and regularly updated labour and human rights assessments on more than 80 countries covering national law, labour markets, employment practices, human rights risks and compliance gaps at national and sectoral level.

Workplace assessments

We undertake workplace assessments, often in the context of complaints, using innovative techniques focused on worker voice, to understand underlying problems affecting workers and to identify how improvements can be instituted.

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Implementation

Capacity-building

We support improvements in employment practices and human rights outcomes in workplaces through diagnostic analysis, needs analysis and training managers and workers. Subjects can range from promoting gender equality to respecting freedom of association and implementing living wage strategies.

Training and development

We develop and deliver learning and development programmes for clients on issues such as human rights due diligence and labour standards, as well as on cross-cutting issues such as gender equality and protecting migrant workers.

 

Facilitation

We provide external management and facilitation for policy development processes, individual stakeholder meetings, and for ongoing forums and networks.

Grievance and remedy

We have a particular expertise in reviewing, developing and managing operational complaints and grievance processes, consistent with the UNGPs. We have developed such mechanisms for major sporting events, infrastructure projects, individual work sites and companies and sectors.

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