An Effective Human Rights Impact Assessment

Respect for human rights is defined as avoiding infringement on the rights of others and addressing adverse human rights impacts.

WHAT IS AN HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT ASSESSMENT (HRIA)?

An HRIA simplifies the complexity of managing human rights by providing companies with a consistent, efficient, and systematic way to identify, prioritize, and address human rights risks and opportunities at a corporate and site. Every negative business impact does not necessarily infringe on human rights. An HRIA can help a company understand when a negative social or environmental impact begins to infringe on human rights.

WHY CONDUCT AN HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT ASSESSMENT?

Assessing human rights impacts helps companies proactively shape a strategic approach to human rights based on relevant risks and opportunities rather than reacting to external pressure or unexpected incidents.

An HRIA is part of every company's responsibility to treat all human beings with respect and dignity. Operating without infringing on human rights is one of society's baseline expectations of the business. Meeting this expectation is not just an ethical imperative, it also makes business sense.

HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT ASSESSMENT Levels

Lakshmi Green Ship Recyclers LLP's approach to HRIAs includes two different levels: corporate and site. They represent an efficient way for a company to identify, prioritize, and address human rights impacts, risks, and opportunities related to its operations and business relationships.

Corporate Level

Steps	Activities	Engagement
Step 1: Immersion Build human rights experts’ knowledge of the business company’s the and knowledge of human rights issues and expectations	Review company strategy and relevant policies and processes Review recent human rights disclosures and results from relevant assessments and engagements Benchmark industry peers Form a cross-functional task force to lead the HRIA Align expectations and knowledge of process internally, possibly through human rights training for key company leaders	Carry out internal interviews with key departments (e.g. human resources, purchasing, product development, etc.) to hone in on the human rights issues that are likely to be relevant to the company
Step 2: Mapping dentify the most relevant human rights issues for the company by mapping the real and perceived intersection points with human rights across all operations	Customize a human rights mapping tool for the company’s context and objectives Determine the organizing framework for mapping (i.e., by business line, region, and value chain step) Conduct a media search, including cases and allegations against the company or peer companies. Map the operations against the full universe of potentially relevant human rights issues to identify risk and opportunity areas	Conduct external interviews with key stakeholders and experts to verify the results.
Step 3: Prioritization Prioritize human rights risks and opportunities to determine where the company should focus on resources (note that all impacts and risks should be addressed).	Prioritize the relevant human rights risk identified in Step 2 based on risk to rights holders, using likelihood, scale, severity, and remediability. Rank opportunities based on the company’s overall strategic goals and the ability to have an impact.	Share a summary of findings from external interviews with company participants.
Step 4:Management Build a robust approach to addressing impacts, managing risks, and maximizing opportunities by strengthening the company’s human rights strategy, policies, processes, and engagement.	Conduct a gap analysis of current policies and processes based on the priorities identified in Step3 Strengthen the current management system based on the gap analysis results Draft human rights strategy based on the most important risks and opportunities Develop action plans to further investigate identified issues, including through in-depth HRIAs. Build an ongoing due diligence process Develop a plan to raise awareness and build capacity internally	Share high- level HRIA findings with key stakeholders and experts Gain input from key stakeholders and experts about the new human rights strategy

Steps

Activities

Engagement

Step 1: Immersion

Build human rights experts’ knowledge of the business
company’s the and knowledge of human rights issues and expectations

Review company strategy and relevant policies and processes

Review recent human rights disclosures and results from relevant assessments and engagements

Benchmark industry peers

Form a cross-functional task force to lead the HRIA

Align expectations and knowledge of process internally, possibly through human rights training for key company leaders

Carry out internal interviews with key departments (e.g. human resources, purchasing, product development, etc.) to hone in on the human rights issues that are likely to be relevant to the company

Step 2: Mapping

dentify the most relevant human rights issues for the company by mapping the real and perceived intersection points with human rights across all operations

Customize a human rights mapping tool for the company’s context and objectives

Determine the organizing framework for mapping (i.e., by business line, region, and value chain step)

Conduct a media search, including cases and allegations against the company or peer companies.

Map the operations against the full universe of potentially relevant human rights issues to identify risk and opportunity areas

Conduct external interviews with key stakeholders and experts to verify the results.

Step 3: Prioritization

Prioritize human rights risks and opportunities to determine where the company should focus on resources (note that all impacts and risks should be addressed).

Prioritize the relevant human rights risk identified in Step 2 based on risk to rights holders, using likelihood, scale, severity, and remediability.

Rank opportunities based on the company’s overall strategic goals and the ability to have an impact.

Share a summary of findings from external interviews with company participants.

Step 4:Management

Build a robust approach to addressing impacts, managing risks, and maximizing opportunities by strengthening the company’s human rights strategy, policies, processes, and engagement.

Conduct a gap analysis of current policies and processes based on the priorities identified in Step3

Strengthen the current management system based on the gap analysis results

Draft human rights strategy based on the most important risks and opportunities

Develop action plans to further investigate identified issues, including through in-depth HRIAs.

Build an ongoing due diligence process

Develop a plan to raise awareness and build capacity internally

Share high- level HRIA findings with key stakeholders and experts Gain input from key stakeholders and experts about the new human rights strategy

Site Level

Steps	Activities	Engagement
Step 1: Immersion Build human rights experts’ knowledge of the business company’s the and knowledge of human rights issues and expectations	Create a cross-functional human rights task force or steering committee at the site. Review the nature and scale of current operations. Identify and review the current internal policies and external commitments (e.g., voluntary principles). Understand the existing assessment systems and data collection practices. Review recent stakeholder and community engagement outcomes. Study the specific community and local human rights context to develop an initial view of the risks and opportunities	Identify internal business leads and legitimate representatives of rights holders for engagement. Engage internal stakeholders on human rights through discussions or formal training.
Step 2: Mapping Identify the most relevant human rights issues for the company by mapping the real and perceived intersection points with human rights across all operations	Review recent relevant assessments, including country- and site-level assessments, such as ESIAs or audit results. Conduct a media search on relevant human rights issues, cases and allegations related to the site or to similar business activity in the region. Collaborate with the site-level leads to populate the HRIA a tool to map the relevant issues based on their significance and source (e.g., project, contractor, etc.).	Interview site-level business leads about potential human rights risks. Engage with legitimate representatives of potentially affected communities and local stakeholders and experts.
Step 3: Prioritization Prioritize human rights risks and opportunities to determine where the company should focus on resources (note that all impacts and risks should be addressed).	Analyze the populated HRIA a tool to identify existing and potential human rights impacts. Prioritize impacts and risks based on their scale, remediability, and likelihood.	Conduct an internal workshop to review your findings and prioritize risks and opportunities.
Step 4: Management Build a robust approach to addressing impacts, managing risks, and maximizing opportunities by strengthening the company’s human rights strategy, policies, processes, and engagement.	Develop action plans to address specific impacts, risks, and opportunities. Integrate HRIA findings into existing policies, management systems, and work plans. Introduce new policies and systems, including grievance mechanisms, to mitigate risks. Develop and implement human rights training. Monitor ongoing human rights performance. Institutionalize human rights management and ongoing due diligence within site-level governance. Apply lessons to your corporate human rights strategy and policies.	Conduct an internal workshop to review recommendations. Conduct training on priority issues for key site-level staff. Share high-level findings with stakeholders.

Steps

Activities

Engagement

Step 1: Immersion

Build human rights experts’ knowledge of the business company’s the and knowledge of human rights issues and expectations

Create a cross-functional human rights task force or steering committee at the site.

Review the nature and scale of current operations.

Identify and review the current internal policies and external commitments (e.g., voluntary principles).

Understand the existing assessment systems and data collection practices.

Review recent stakeholder and community engagement outcomes.

Study the specific community and local human rights context to develop an initial view of the risks and opportunities

Identify internal business leads and legitimate representatives of rights holders for engagement.

Engage internal stakeholders on human rights through discussions or formal training.

Step 2: Mapping

Identify the most relevant human rights issues for the company by mapping the real and perceived intersection points with human rights across all operations

Review recent relevant assessments, including country- and site-level assessments, such as ESIAs or audit results.

Conduct a media search on relevant human rights issues,
cases and allegations related to the site or to similar business activity in the region.

Collaborate with the site-level leads to populate the HRIA a tool to map the relevant issues based on their significance and source (e.g., project, contractor, etc.).

Interview site-level business leads about potential human rights risks.

Engage with legitimate representatives of potentially affected communities and local stakeholders and experts.

Step 3: Prioritization

Prioritize human rights risks and opportunities to determine where the company should focus on resources (note that all impacts and risks should be addressed).

Analyze the populated HRIA a tool to identify existing and potential human rights impacts.

Prioritize impacts and risks based on their scale, remediability, and likelihood.

Conduct an internal workshop to review your findings and prioritize risks and opportunities.

Step 4: Management

Build a robust approach to addressing impacts, managing risks, and maximizing opportunities by strengthening the company’s human rights strategy, policies, processes, and engagement.

Develop action plans to address specific impacts, risks, and opportunities.

Integrate HRIA findings into existing policies, management systems, and work plans.

Introduce new policies and systems, including grievance mechanisms, to mitigate risks.

Develop and implement human rights training. Monitor ongoing human rights performance.

Institutionalize human rights management and ongoing due diligence within site-level governance.

Apply lessons to your corporate human rights strategy and policies.

Conduct an internal workshop to review recommendations.

Conduct training on priority issues for key site-level staff.

Share high-level findings with stakeholders.