Services
Human Rights Assessments
Assessment is the foundation of positive human rights in supply chains.
Effective human rights assessments allow businesses to identify risks in their supply chains. Businesses are then empowered with the knowledge to prevent issues from occurring, to mitigate challenges and to remediate when adverse impacts have occurred.
We have extensive experience in conducting a wide range of assessments. This includes human rights assessments (also known as audits), needs assessments, risk assessments and human rights impact assessments. Our assessments are always bespoke to the needs of clients and responsive to the complex operating realities of supply chains. They provide practicable recommendations tailored to client requirements and designed to achieve sustainable change in human rights standards.
Our approach to Human Rights Assessments:
Our approach to assessments helps you gain real insight into:
- The risks of suboptimal human rights performances across your supply chain.
- How your sites perform against a set of standards – which are the leaders, which are the laggards?
- What areas require improvements with respect to:
- Sophistication of management systems (e.g. human resources, communication, health & safety)
- Workplace culture
Why Partner With Us on a Human Rights Assessment?
Research conducted comparing the social audits of three major audit companies versus the Impactt human rights assessment methodology has found that on average, Impactt assessments uncover 2.23 times more issues for our clients. The biggest differences in these issues were found in the areas of:
Transparency of documents, which includes concerns such as: double bookkeeping or discrepancies between wages and working hour data, where the research showed that we were able to uncover 7.3 times more issues at the same sites, than others.
Ethical treatment, which includes such concerns as discrimination, disciplinary, harsh treatment, where the research showed that we were able to uncover 3 times more issues at the same sites, than others.
Our Approach To Human Rights Assessments Is:
Worker-centric
We take a more sophisticated approach to worker engagement. We believe to truly get to the heart of what is happening in a workplace, you must engage with workers in a meaningful and engaged way. Workers are our peers and often have the greatest visibility of management systems gaps. This approach helps bring less visible issues to light.
Focused on the root causes
Our assessments are the opposite of a tick box exercise. For us it is not only important that factories have policies in place but how well they are implemented and how effectively they work for workers. We identify why issues and gaps occur and considering enabling factors in the wider context the site operates in.
Forensic
Our teams are skilled in getting to the bottom of issues and identifying root causes.
Understanding Management Perspectives
We do not police, we partner. We see ourselves as a critical friend of everyone we work with, including site management. We provide a ‘safe space’ for site management to be honest about their challenges and take their perspective into account. We take a solution focused and consultative approach because we believe site management must get value out of the visit.
Detailed Action Plans to Improve Performance
We want to support sites to continue the good work that they are doing but also to provide them with tangible actions they can take to overcome challenges. Our audit reports provide factories with a defined action plan; introducing realistic, step-by step improvements that can be employed to improve over time.
To achieve a higher level of performance, we help sites understand the root causes and provide them with tools to build better relationships with their workers. We also assist in resolving key issues by implementing programs that improve conditions for employees as well as increasing competitiveness within the company’s supply chain. Our assessments help you understand the impact of an initiative or significant event on the workforce and site such as the Covid-19 pandemic, a capacity building programme, etc.
How We’ve Helped Others
Case Studies
Strategic Partner for Human Rights Due Diligence
Impactt has been working with a large Dutch Company that provides engineering and construction solutions on complex and high-scale projects since 2019 to help build its human rights strategy from scratch and support its implementation. Since 2019 we have: Assessed 12 contractors across China, Africa, and South America, interviewing over 800… Read More
Ethical assessment of Indian tea estates
Impactt conducted an ethical assessment of several tea estates belonging to the world largest tea company in Assam, India, in 2021. The assessments were interview-based, reviewing the operating environment in India for tea plantations and workers’ priorities (livelihoods and working conditions). Methodology: Reviewed the operating environment in India for the… Read More
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Impactt UK
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