July 11, 2024 – Today Rights CoLab announces the launch of a new initiative designed to equip investors with tools they need to assess the quality of their portfolio company’s human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD). 

The tools are housed on a dedicated website,  Investor HREDD Precision Tools, as a public resource and one-stop shop for investors seeking research-backed insights and practical steps to evaluate the quality of portfolio companies’ HREDD. Each tool addresses a pain point—and a point of leverage—in the process of investor engagement with corporations, through which investors seek to discern a company’s true risk exposure.

This initiative is part of Rights CoLab’s larger strategy to partner with investors to improve business impact on human rights. The project is a collaboration among a growing number of organizations, including EIRIS Foundation, ESG Inteligente, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility/Investor Alliance for Human Rights, Principles for Responsible Investments, Responsible Contracting Project, and Workforce Disclosure Initiative.

The first tools featured on the website include: 

  1. Certifications Red Flags.  Developed by Rights CoLab, Certifications Red Flags provides warning signs that a social certification may not be a reliable indicator of corporate performance, and points investors to positive signals in certifications so investors can better assess a certification’s capability of reducing social risks in supply chains.
  2. Investor Guidance on Responsible Contracting. Developed by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and the Responsible Contracting Project, Responsible Contracting outlines how responsible contracting can support more robust HREDD processes that can effectively prevent adverse human rights and environmental impacts.

Additional tools on Stakeholder Engagement and on Remedy, and an Engagement Script are forthcoming. 

The Investor HREDD Precision Tools Project was made possible through the generous support of the Generation Foundation; the Accountability Accelerator at the Global Commons Alliance, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors; and Humanity United.