Strengthening business accountability
in the National Action Plans
on Business and Human Rights:
Policy recommendations on transparency
Developed by:

Supported by:

Policy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

INTRODUCTION
enterprises on the other. According to Guiding Principle
3(d), States should “encourage, and where appropriate
require, business enterprises to communicate how they
address their human rights impacts.” However, a Staterole is not necessary to make disclosure a requirement
for business enterprises. Guiding Principle 21 provides
that “in order to account for how they address their humanThe expectation of human rights due diligence is rights impacts, business enterprises should be prepared toessential to business behavior, as set out in the Guiding communicate this externally, particularly when concerns
Principles. The due diligence process consists of the are raised by or on behalf of affected stakeholders.”
identification, prevention, mitigation and accounting of
how companies address their human rights impacts. Reporting can help companies become aware of andThis responsibility to account for addressing impacts understand the human rights impacts of their decisions
makes the disclosure of non-financial information a and activities. The GRI Sustainability Reporting
critical component of the due diligence process, and is Standards (GRI Standards)2 provide a comprehensive
increasingly becoming a legally binding obligation.
framework that can be used by businesses to reporton their human rights impacts and how they manage
The Guiding Principles distinguish between the role them, including their due diligence processes (seeof States on the one hand and the role of business “Update of human rights-related GRI Standards”).

Unanimously endorsed by the UN Human Rights
Council in 2011, the Guiding Principles on Businessand Human Rights1 (Guiding Principles) have become
the authoritative global reference regarding the
responsibilities of business enterprises with respect tohuman rights.

1 https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/GuidingprinciplesBusinesshr_eN.pdf
2 https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/

Policy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

CALL-TO-ACTION
At the 2019 edition of its Forum, “Time to act:
Governments as catalysts for business respect forhuman rights,”3 the UN Working Group on Businessand Human Rights (UN Working Group) is calling forgovernment action and leadership. GRI also recognizes
the fundamental role of policy makers, understoodas government officials, members of government
agencies and regulators, in facilitating and promoting
the corporate responsibility to respect human rights.
A number of national and regional legislative initiatives
indicate a growing trend towards regulating humanrights due diligence,4 through obligations to conduct
due diligence and/or transparency requirements.
In practice, to fulfil their respective duties andresponsibilities, States and businesses have to take action
as determined by the Guiding Principles. Subsequently,
National Action Plans (NAPs) on Business and Human
Rights5 have emerged as a key policy instrument forStates to protect against the adverse human rights
impacts caused by business activities. NAPs set out
official policies, national expectations, priorities andactivities with respect to the implementation of the
Guiding Principles. Through the development of
NAPs, governments consider existing policies andchallenges related to businesses and human rights andset out measures for both the State and businesses
to take. These measures include, among other things,
how companies should be encouraged or required toreport on how they address their impacts, as called
for in Guiding Principle 3(d). For that purpose, theguidance document on NAPs developed by the UN
Working Group encourages governments to “support
efforts to have transparency in relation to business andhuman rights issues by clarifying their expectations
regarding the disclosure of information on human rights
due diligence and related impacts”6 – and, further, torefer to established reporting standards such as GRI.

In this document, GRI provides additional
recommendations on how to strengthen business
transparency and reporting requirements in the NAPs.
The recommendations are based on an analysis of the23 NAPs published as of September 2019.7 They are
aimed primarily at governments drafting or updating
their NAPs, but also at stakeholders participating inthis process, including businesses, civil society, andresearch and national human rights institutions. The
analysis shows that the disclosure of non-financial
information receives uneven treatment in existing
NAPs. These recommendations are intended toprovide a basis for discussion by the participants in
the NAPs process as to how non-financial information
can be incorporated into national human rights policy.

Update of human rights-related GRI Standards
GRI is currently working to update the human rights-related
GRI Standards8 to better align them with key authoritativeintergovernmental instruments, such as the UN Guiding Principles
on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines forMultinational Enterprises. The review will also take into accountthe OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible BusinessConduct, which is the most authoritative elaboration of humanrights due diligence. This project will look at:
 Including a set of human rights-specific disclosures (e.g.,
policy commitment) in GRI 102: General Disclosures, foruse by all organizations reporting with the GRI Standards;
 Including reporting requirements on due diligence for all
economic, environmental, and social topics an organization
reports on; Reviewing and revising the range of human rights-related
topics covered in the GRI Standards (e.g., GRI 408: Child
Labor, GRI 409: Forced or Compulsory Labor), and therelated disclosures, to ensure they reflect best practice.

3 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Forum/Pages/2019ForumBHR.aspx
4 https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/mandatory-due-diligence
5 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Pages/NationalActionPlans.aspx
6 https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/UNWG_NAPGuidance.pdf
7 https://globalnaps.org/ and https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/government-action-platform
8 https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/work-program-and-standards-review/review-of-human-rights-related-gri-standards/

Policy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
Experience shows that the State duty to protect
human rights cannot be fully realized through voluntary
guidelines and self-regulation by companies alone. Andso, in many countries, reliance on voluntary efforts
by companies to account for how they address theirimpacts has been followed by increasing mandatory
disclosure requirements. These regulations tend to
focus on general non-financial information and/or
specific human rights issues such as modern slavery
or child labor.
The exploration and development of legally binding
requirements should be a component of NAPs in
the context of achieving a “smart mix” of voluntaryand binding State measures. Examples of such
reforms include mandatory non-financial reporting
requirements, such as those provided by the EU
Non-Financial Reporting Directive (2014)9 or
mandatory human rights due diligence regulations.10
Beyond addressing national or regional legislation, it isnotable that many NAPs refer to other instruments
or frameworks. These include the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)11
Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises as well as
related guidance such as the OECD Due Diligence
Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. In addition
to authoritative governmental frameworks, there areimportant sector-specific initiatives developed byindustry bodies such as the International Council on
Mining and Metals and IPIECA for oil and gas.

Despite these legislative efforts, there is a striking
gap in policy commitment, management systems andreporting on results and progress from businesses.12
A 2018 European study by the Alliance for Corporate
Transparency13 reveals that while 90% of companies
expressed a commitment to respect human rights
in their annual reports, only 36% described their
human rights due diligence system. Reporting needs
to go beyond stating general policies and processes
or other generic quantitative metrics. For reporting
to be meaningful, businesses need to report on thechallenges they face and provide specific examples of
how policies and processes are applied in practice.
Further, they should take a forward-looking approachand provide clear targets and goals to show how they
are intending to address their impacts. The following
recommendations look at filling these gaps andensuring that NAPs address human rights reporting in
the most effective manner.

The “smart mix” of measures – voluntary andmandatory, national and international – can drive
further progress towards more and better humanrights reporting. Most importantly, it should always
consider the globalized nature of today’s economy.
NAPs can use non-financial reporting requirements
to address the human rights impacts of home-based
companies beyond national borders.

9 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0095
10 https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/mandatory-due-diligence
11 http://mneguidelines.oecd.org/
12 https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/Shining%20a%20Light%20on%20Human%20Rights%202016.pdf
13 https://www.allianceforcorporatetransparency.org/

Policy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY MAKERS
NAPs should require public reporting on 4. NAPs should be informed by sustainability
human rights impacts based on internationallyreports as part of an efficient and transparent
recognized standards that are aligned with
monitoring process. These reports should be
the Guiding Principles. To ensure quality andused as a source of information on responsible
consistency of the information disclosed bybusiness conduct but also to determine the extent
companies, the relevant legislation should require
to which businesses meet their responsibility tocompanies to report on their human rights due
identify and address their human rights impacts.
diligence processes across their activities andThey inform governments on the common
business relationships. Requiring the use of specificthemes and human rights impacts related tostandards, such as the GRI Standards, for humandomestic companies operating in the country or
rights reporting will allow the performance ofabroad, as well as the challenges faced by foreigncompanies that report to be comparable, whichor multinational companies operating in their
may act as an incentive for them to communicate
territory. Sustainability reports that rely on the
how they manage their impacts and benefit
GRI Standards can help governments develop
companies that already do so.
better policies while facilitating the extraction,
aggregation and correlation of data.
2. NAPs should consistently clarify thatcompanies need to disclose how they are 5. NAPs should take into account the reporting
managing their human rights impacts,
responsibilities of all businesses, including
according to the key components of the due
small and medium-sized enterprises anddiligence process outlined in the Guiding Principles.
state-owned enterprises. As all organizations
They should specify that companies are expected
can impact human rights, reporting requirements
to include information on the human rights
should also target the value chains of businesses,
risks identified, the measures taken to avoid andincluding both domestic and international businessaddress them, as well as the effectiveness of those
operations. For these two categories of reporters,
measures. This way, NAPs can serve governments
the development of trainings is particularly
to communicate the benefits and added value ofimportant.
non-financial information as a tool to identify and6. NAPs should provide incentives for companies
manage human rights impacts, as well as highlightto increase and improve their reporting
the advances at the national level.
on human rights impacts. The objective isto encourage companies to have policies and3. NAPs should include concrete targets andimplement adequate procedures at a global level
timelines regarding human rights reporting.
according to their size and circumstances. By
They should call for specific targets for an increase
doing so, governments can incentivize sustainable
in the number of businesses that report as welloutcomes in the way they design their policies andas a clear timeline to monitor the development
in recognizing companies’ reporting. Concreteof the reporting process. The targets should be
examples of incentives include awards, annual
specific, measurable and realistic in order to beevents organized for companies to show progress,
useful in measuring the effectiveness of the policies
as well as rankings to stimulate competition andincluded in the NAPs.
propagate benchmarks.
1.

Policy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY MAKERS
7.

the development and drafting process. Finally,
NAPs should include support to companies
governments should share their experiences on
through the promotion of awareness raising
non-financial reporting with other governments toand capacity building measures targeting
harmonize requirements among jurisdictions.
companies, business associations, and other key
stakeholders. These measures can, for example,
10. NAPs should specify who is responsible forinclude coordinating with employers’ organizations
the implementation of specific action points
to support companies and business representative
including human rights reporting. For thatbodies adequately. Other support measures
purpose, they should clearly identify and publicly
should include the development and production
communicate leadership roles on the developmentof training materials and the organization ofand drafting process. They can recommend themeetings on specific reporting issues. Similarcompletion and publication of impact assessments,
awareness raising and capacity building measures
ensuring that all appropriate stakeholders areshould also be developed for public entities andincluded.
public administration officials. This will help foster
a common understanding and promote dialogue
between the public and private sectors.

8.

NAPs should include the development of
guidance documents that further explain
and specify the reporting requirements set
out. Such guidance can be in the form of topicspecific documents including good practices and/or addressing concrete human rights risks. In
order to evaluate compliance with human rights
issues, companies should be directed to guidancecovering topics that are already addressed inother legislation. These documents can covercertain sectors, in particular for high risk businessactivities (e.g., mining, energy, textile) or specificthemes (e.g., modern slavery, child labor, conflictaffected areas).

9.

NAPs should foster collaborations andpartnerships between the State, public
and private companies, and civil society.
Transparency requirements need not be limited
to formal reporting but can include dialogue withworkers, communities, consumers, and otherstakeholders. NAPs should engage policy makers
at the national and international levels, including
through public consultations, to understand public
opinion on policies and their role. This can bedone through support to industry-led initiatives,
including on reporting, benchmarking performanceand practical sector guidance. Conversely,
NAPs should engage businesses at every step ofPolicy recommendations for the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

Disclaimer:This work has been funded by the Government of
Sweden. Responsibility for the content lies entirely
Acknowledgment:with the creator. The Government of Sweden does
GRI greatly appreciates the support received from the not necessarily share the expressed views andGovernment of Sweden.
interpretations.

GRI thanks the Danish Institute for Human Rights(DIHR), our partner under the Sida program, for its
review of the document.

CONTACT

Julien Parkhomenko
External Affairs and Policy Coordinator, GRI
parkhomenko@globalreporting.org