Member Portal

This FAQ sets out BSR’s perspective on generative AI and its implications for ethics and human rights.

A dive into the potential and ongoing impacts of the EU's Force Labor Product Ban Proposal.

For companies designing and implementing a just, equitable and inclusive approach to net zero, the process is complex and requires difficult trade-offs. This guidance offers practical steps to help companies formulate a just transition plan.

This memo provides a brief overview of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Azerbaijan, including background on the history of conflict and timeline of events, as well as resources and recommendations for response aligned with international human rights standards. This memo follows outreach by civil society alerting BSR to the crisis, the role of business, and potential connections to gross human rights violations. It includes information that companies might anticipate seeing in the media or hearing from civil society in the near term.

Transform to Net Zero created the Supplier Transformation Framework to help companies identify and improve their suppliers’ climate performance.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on new laws and regulations relevant for our work. The field of just and sustainable business is entering a new era where actions that have previously been voluntary are becoming mandatory. We believe it is essential that the spirit of the law is achieved as well as its letter, that compliance supports ambitious human rights policies and sustainability goals, and that regulatory requirements are used to help create a world in which all people can thrive on a healthy planet. 

AI is driving change within the extractives sector, potentially leading to major human rights impacts throughout company operations, from geologic risk analysis to workplace management.

Financial institutions are increasingly using AI technologies, from reducing operational costs to delivering customer service. Yet this evolution may bring human rights risks—as well as opportunities—that companies can’t ignore.

Understanding the foundational and key attributes of establishing and managing a responsible supply chain.

June 2023: The exclusive quarterly member insights provides BSR members perspectives from our global team on sustainability issues and opportunities to help our member companies see a changing world more clearly.

How to set issue-specific sustainability goals that are ambitious, achievable, and align with a high-growth or early-stage company’s overall strategy.

Updated, June 2023

How high-growth and early-stage companies can establish and maintain strong oversight of sustainability initiatives that also cut across many different components of the business.

How high-growth and early-stage companies, newer to sustainability, can better understand complex ESG ratings and identify the ones to prioritize.

April 2023: This deck provides exclusive insights for BSR members. It shares our global teams’ perspective on sustainability issues and opportunities to help our member companies see a changing world more clearly.

This FAQ sets out BSR’s perspective on the governance and oversight of just and sustainable business at companies. We believe that engaged boards, empowered executive leadership, and clear roles and responsibilities throughout companies are essential for the creation of long-term value for investors and society.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on stakeholder engagement. We believe that meaningful stakeholder engagement is an essential foundation for just and sustainable business and a core element of processes such as decision making, strategy development, materiality assessment, human rights due diligence, and reporting. Without meaningful stakeholder engagement, any approach to just and sustainable business would be constrained by a company’s self-interest and inward focus.

Explore human rights issues associated with the increased use of AI technology in the retail sector and recommendations to companies on how they can address the human rights impacts of AI in retail in BSR's new report.

BSR’s Nature team dives into the Science-Based Targets for Nature and discusses how business can take immediate action if it is to keep pace with the market and mitigate nature-related risks before they become acute.  

A tool that helps companies review their human rights policies, structured around minimum requirements and leading practice.

Learn about green hydrogen, from the current state of play to recent trends and innovations.

Electric vehicles continue to develop and replace engine vehicles running on fossil fuels. Explore current trends in the space and future opportunities.

Overview and analysis of the current context and opportunities for carbon capture and storage.

An overview of modern slavery, from emerging frameworks to company involvement through individual corporate and collective action.

Guidance on integrating sustainability management into existing corporate governance and operating model/organizational design.

A tool designed to assess grievance mechanisms against the eight “Effectiveness Criteria” in the UNGPs.

An overview and analysis of current trends in biofuels.

Guidance on design and implementation of human rights strategies and best practices from companies.

Guidance on the elements of human rights governance, featuring example structures and company insights.

Welcome to the first edition of Insights+, a new series that will provide in-depth analysis of emerging global economic and social issues that are fundamental to your sustainable business strategy. In each issue, we’ll answer questions on critical topics that will help guide your leadership to mitigate risks while creating strategic advantage.

We welcome your feedback. If you have follow-up questions on any of the topics covered, or would like to suggest issues for us to explore in upcoming editions, please feel free to contact us.

January 2023: This deck provides exclusive insights for BSR members. It shares our global teams’ perspective on sustainability issues and opportunities to help our member companies see a changing world more clearly.

Explore our survey on types of materiality approaches currently in use, periodicity and sources of assessments, and priority ESG issues now and in the future, based on responses from 13 key financial institutions.

This toolkit provides analytical and operational decision-making guidance for tech companies on navigating conflict-related issues.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on net zero targets. We believe that setting science-based net-zero targets—and more importantly, taking ambitious action to achieve these targets—is core to the role that companies should play in helping achieve the Paris Agreement’s stretch target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on the related concepts of materiality and salience. We believe that implementation of the key concepts described in this FAQ—such as double materiality, impact materiality, and salience—provide the foundation for more resilient business strategies, informed decision making by all stakeholders, and the realization of human rights in practice.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on the relationship between climate change and people. 

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on human rights assessments. We believe that identifying and prioritizing the actual and potential human rights impacts with which a company may be involved is a first critical step in avoiding, preventing, and mitigating harm to people associated with business activity.

October 2022: This deck provides exclusive insights for BSR members. It shares our global teams’ perspective on sustainability issues and opportunities to help our member companies see a changing world more clearly.

Transform to Net Zero sets out eleven key elements of a model Climate Transition Action Plan, with real-world approaches from Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Natura &Co., Nike, and Unilever.

Explore the most relevant, urgent, and probable human rights impacts for businesses operating in the beauty and personal care sector.

By understanding human rights risks and impacts across the food, beverage, and agriculture supply chain, companies can better mitigate potential negative effects and advance human rights for all.

The luxury sector comprises a wide range of businesses and activities. While each has its own human rights profile and challenges, BSR shares universal human rights risks and opportunities for companies operating in this sector. 

In this guide, Environmental Defense Fund, Microsoft and Unilever outline how companies can advocate for public policies which promote net zero transformation.

In this guide, three Transform to Net Zero founding members, Starbucks, Unilever and Wipro, share their approaches to integrating climate justice into their business transformation.

July 2022: This deck provides exclusive insights for BSR members. It shares our global teams’ perspective on sustainability issues and opportunities to help our member companies see a changing world more clearly.

Explore the most urgent human rights impacts for the industrial manufacturing sector as well as opportunities for companies in this sector.

SaaS services address numerous business needs, and they are behind many of the consumer-facing products and platforms we use every day. This report identifies salient human rights risks and makes recommendations to SaaS providers on how to avoid, prevent, and mitigate adverse human rights impacts associated with their individual services and the sector as a whole.

This paper, prepared by the Dairy Subgroup of Transform to Net Zero, presents strategies for how companies across the livestock supply chain can meet methane reduction targets by accelerating the use of existing manure management technologies.

In this guide, three Transform to Net Zero founding members, Nike, Unilever and Wipro, share their approaches to developing products and services that convert their ambitious net zero commitments into actions to benefit their customers.

BSR’s Toolkit for Corporate Action to End Gun Violence was developed in collaboration with Everytown for Gun Safety. Gun violence is a national issue in the US. Due to the pervasiveness of gun violence, businesses, their employees, business partners, and customers are all likely to have been impacted by the issue at some point. While many companies see the issue of gun violence as falling outside their sphere of responsibility and influence, companies can and should take action to protect their employees, consumers, and the communities they operate in.

According to the UNGPs, companies should identify and assess any actual or potential adverse human rights impacts to gauge human rights risks. BSR shares its human rights assessment methodology to help with this important first step of human rights due diligence.

From automation to climate disruption, this report considers the impact of a changing industry context and dynamics on workers and offers recommendations to industry and policymakers on creating a just, fair and inclusive circular fashion system.

In this guide, three Transform to Net Zero founding members—Danone, Wipro and EDF—share their approach to navigating the net zero goal setting process and setting net zero ambition that translates into meaningful business transformation.

This report explores the intersection between climate and human rights and makes recommendations on taking first steps to create long-term, resilient business strategies that address human rights impacts related to physical climate impacts as well as the transition to a low carbon economy.

In this Guide, three Transform to Net Zero founding members, Unilever, Nike, and Microsoft, all of whom included Scope 3 reduction in their net zero commitments, share their approach of engaging suppliers to bring them along in the decarbonization journey.

After 10 years of implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), companies are increasingly expected to address the harms they have caused or contributed to through their business relationships. This brief explains what effective remedy is, the role of business, and five recommendations for companies to improve access.

The Global Business Coalition against Human Trafficking (GBCAT) has released a new toolkit that aims to help businesses that work in corporate supply chains to quickly identify areas of the business which carry the highest risk of modern slavery and develop a plan to identify, prevent, and address risks.

According to many ethical and human rights frameworks, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have a responsibility to address adverse impacts that may be associated with their business relationships and use of their products and services.

We can see and feel the human rights impacts of products and services. This issue brief explains downstream human rights due diligence, why it’s important, coming advancements, and how to get started.

How can companies determine whether they have caused, contributed, or are directly linked to an adverse impact through their business relationships? A new white paper explores seven questions to help companies determine their connection to negative impacts and how to reframe these questions to identify appropriate actions to prevent and mitigate potential adverse human rights impacts that may occur in the future.

Sustainability reporting and disclosure on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues is increasing globally. BSR's new report provides guidance on producing a good sustainability report based on several prominent reporting standards and frameworks.

In recent years, society’s expectations for the biopharmaceutical industry to advance the right to health has broadened. Gathered from BSR’s direct engagement with pharma companies, we share the most relevant, urgent, and probable human rights impacts for the healthcare sector.

The only way for companies to achieve ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets is to go beyond direct company operations and tackle value chain (Scope 3) emissions.

The BSR tool guides companies through human rights due diligence in situations when very little time is available. The tool also makes specific reference to the Siracusa Principles, adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1984, which describe limitations on the restriction on human rights that governments may apply for reasons of public health or national emergency.

To support social auditors, companies and a broader spectrum of social compliance regulatory organizations, BSR has developed a Gender Equality and Social Audits e-Learning course. The interactive course, consisting of three parts, covers key gender concepts, the business case for addressing gender in social audits, and considerations for tips for ensuring a gender-sensitive approach throughout an audit process.

As business leaders across industries pursue M&A activity, there will be substantial ESG opportunities and risks for the companies involved: opportunities to create more ambitious and resilient sustainability strategies, accompanied by risks that ESG objectives will be sidelined by overwhelming pressures to create short-term value.

The Supply Chain Leadership Ladder 2.0 incorporates learnings from our work with companies where we use the framework to identify their level of maturity and ambition, benchmark their practices against their peers, and develop concrete action plans to improve.

This report provides a comprehensive stakeholder engagement approach and toolkit that will help your company build and retain stakeholder trust in the long term.

Over the past 10 years, the private equity sector has seen responsible investment approaches move from exception to expectation. Formalized integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations is becoming the norm. For all firms, a meaningful policy is fundamental to responsible investment and ESG integration.

The just transition is an economy-wide process that produces the plans, policies, and investments that build resilient economies and communities with green and decent jobs, and this report explores the role business can play in making it a reality.

This report explores the intimate connection between climate resilience and human rights and outlines how companies can address this nexus.

This paper explores the connection between women’s empowerment and resilience to climate change and aims to drive corporate action to put women at the center of climate solutions.

Climate change and the economy are inextricably linked. This report highlights how companies across sectors can better understand how they can contribute to more climate-resilient and inclusive economies.

Climate change will impact the health of humans around the world. This paper explores the intersection of climate and public health issues and highlights the business case for action.

This report explores how businesses can enhance their resilience to the impacts of climate change on their supply chains and improve their supply chain management in the process.

To help businesses explore the interaction between climate and these areas, and to direct companies to opportunities for synergy and interventions that will build climate resilience, BSR is launching a series of reports on the “nexus” between climate resilience and other key sustainability issues: supply chain, health, inclusive economy, women, human rights, and just transition.

Artificial intelligence (AI)—and the big data business models underpinning it—is disrupting how we live, work, do business, and govern. We have published three papers describing a human rights-based blueprint for responsible business practice with regard to AI, both within and beyond the technology sector.

This report seeks to demystify the US$6 billion revenue opportunity for financial service providers to integrate sustainability considerations into supply chain finance, allowing buyers, suppliers, and financial service providers to create mechanisms that reward and incentivize sustainable behavior in supply chains.

This white paper explores the role of women in the jewelry supply chain and the challenges they face to their well-being and advancement.

This paper explores recent developments and best practices in supply chain transparency, supplier engagement, and responses to shifts in trade and globalization.

The extractives sector comprises a wide range of businesses and activities, each with its own human rights profile and challenges. In this primer, BSR shares universal human rights risks and opportunities for companies operating in this sector. 

Explore forces of change that will reshape supply chains from today to 2025 and recommendations for how companies can develop their supply chains to be fit for the future.

Learn about the most relevant, urgent, and probable human rights impacts for the power and utilities sector, as well as opportunities that companies can take to make positive impact.

The financial sector comprises a wide range of businesses and activities, each with its own human rights profile and challenges. In this primer, BSR shares universal human rights risks and opportunities for financial services companies.