The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD)
What, why, and how?
GLOBAL CSR has more than 25 years of experience working with ESG/CSR/RBC. And within the past 12 years, we have been assisting best practice companies to implement the UNGPs/OECD, aka the international ‘minimum standard’ for responsible business conduct or the ‘minimum safeguards’.
The steep regulatory trajectory and client wishes inspired us to delineate the fundamentals, resulting in the enclosed Primer on the minimum standard. Numerous national regulations are built on the UNGPs/OECD, including the EU Taxonomy, the CSRD, and the CSDDD. Whether being a large corporation or a value chain entity, it is crucial to understand the foundations and to approach the task in a pragmatic manner.
The Primer describes the key elements of the management system referenced in the UNGPs and outlines all key areas of sustainability, that should be subject to regular operational-level impact assessments, i.e., sustainability due diligence (hint: it includes all 48 human rights). It briefly explains where to start your journey towards alignment. The Primer also covers responsibility in business relationships, applicable for your work to seek to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts in value chains, and includes a non-exhaustive list on regulations and international frameworks, including the relationship between the UNGPs/OECD and the SDGs and the UN Global Compact.