Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs) are fast becoming a cornerstone of corporate human rights due diligence. Where a standard social audit tends to provide a snapshot of compliance—checking whether policies or practices meet set requirements—an HRIA goes further. It examines how a company’s operations actually affect people and communities, uncovering risks, root causes, and systemic issues.
In short, audits measure compliance; HRIAs measure real-world impact.
We see this as a fundamental shift: leading businesses are moving beyond compliance-driven, tick-box audits towards approaches that uncover real impacts and build long-term value. By embracing HRIAs, companies can strengthen stakeholder trust, enhance resilience, and future-proof their supply chains.
In this article, Impactt consultants Nicola Spruyt and Martha Baker Woodside share our structured Human Rights Impact Assessment process—outlining its scope, why it matters, and the key steps companies should take to effectively evaluate and address human rights risks.
Through Human Rights Impact Assessments, our clients uncover risks and opportunities they hadn’t previously considered, gain a deeper understanding of their influence, and unlock better conditions for workers.
For many companies, this has the dual benefit of genuinely enhancing their relationships with suppliers, which ultimately strengthens the company’s operations and due diligence systems.
Nicola Spruyt, Consultant
What is a Human Rights Impact Assessment and when is it needed?
In a business context, a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) is a comprehensive process for identifying and addressing actual and potential impacts of a company’s operations across its projects, products, services, and value chains.
While compliance and risk assessments may reference international frameworks, they are typically designed to measure conformity with legal requirements, company codes, or buyer standards — and often focus primarily on risks to the business. By contrast, HRIAs are explicitly grounded in international human rights standards and place people at the centre, with particular attention to those most vulnerable and marginalised
Impactt typically recommends Human Rights Impact Assessments to clients in the following scenarios:
- New projects or ventures: HRIAs help to proactively identify and address human rights risks from the outset, before they escalate or become embedded in business practices.
- Expansion of business into a new market or region: Conducting an HRIA provides a clear understanding of the local human rights landscape, including relevant laws, cultural norms, and social dynamics. This enables the company to design strategies that are tailored and effective in that specific context, rather than relying on one-size-fits-all approaches.
- Major changes in business operations or supply chains: Any new changes may create new human rights risks. Human rights due diligence at this point will mitigate any new negative effects and ensure operations remain ethical and compliant.
- Allegations or incidents have been uncovered (or are suspected) within a particular supply chain: Where human rights abuses are suspected or uncovered, an HRIA can identify root causes, establish the full scope of the issue, and support the development of an evidence-based, effective response strategy.
- As part of ongoing due diligence: HRIAs are a systematic way to regularly monitor and report on your human rights performance, keeping your operations compliant, and robust.
- For companies with complex or multi-tiered supply chains: Because HRIAs allow you to map and prioritise risks across an entire supply chain, your business resources can be focused on the most critical areas.
Some companies also carry out Human Rights and Environmental Impact Assessments (HRIEAs), which extend the scope to environmental impacts. This recognises how environmental issues, such as industrial water pollution, can directly affect human rights, for example, communities’ access to clean water.
At Impactt, our Human Rights Impact Assessments stand apart because they’re built on broad and inclusive stakeholder engagement. We listen closely to diverse voices, from workers and communities to internal teams and external experts, ensuring rightsholders are at the heart of our work.
We combine rigorous pre-scoping and document review with on-the-ground fieldwork, so our insights are both evidence-based and rooted in lived experience. By adding structured risk and benchmark analysis, we help clients not only meet today’s compliance requirements but also prepare for emerging regulations and expectations.
Importantly, our reporting is solutions-focused, challenges clients to act, deliver insights that matter, and support meaningful systems change.
Martha Baker-Woodside, Technical and Quality Senior Consultant
What is the methodology of a good human rights impact assessment?
Too often, Human Rights Impact Assessments resemble academic reports: descriptive, lengthy, and without a clear “so what?” They identify problems but rarely drive change. At Impactt, we take a different approach.
Our HRIAs are business-focused and solutions-driven. We show clients how their operations and supply chains impact workers and communities — both positively and negatively — and provide clear, actionable recommendations to improve outcomes, strengthen due diligence, and get ahead of regulatory scrutiny.
Our methodology:
For example, Impactt recently conducted a collaborative Human Rights Impact Assessment across the Vietnamese prawn supply chain.
As part of the methodology laid out above, we carried out:
- Comprehensive sector context analysis through desktop research and expert interviews.
- Documentation review of policies and management systems.
- Multi-stakeholder interviews with industry, government, civil society actors and other duty bearers.
- On-site impact assessments across 15 production facilities with worker-centric interviewing and engagement with impacted rights-holders.
Our assessment revealed that coordinated action would be needed to overcome interconnected labour, environmental, and economic challenges.
As a result, our practical recommendations led to:
- The formation of a cross-industry working group to address systemic wage issues.
- The implementation of flexible pricing contracts that would accommodate seasonal fluctuations.
- The development of enhanced grievance mechanisms, accessible to vulnerable workers.
- The improvement of chemicals management practices, protecting both workers’ health and safety and the environment.
More than just a compliance tool, a well-executed Human Rights Impact Assessment empowers your business to build trust among suppliers and rightsholders, enhance their reputation, and build truly sustainable value chains – opening your eyes to the wider supply chain, and your role within it.
Find out more about our diagnostics services here, and contact info@impacttlimited.com to discuss how Impactt can support your business to identify issues in your supply chain.
