Advancing human rights policy and practice in the agribusiness sector: An implementation toolkit

Objectives of the toolkit

• This toolkit aims to foster alignment and scale action to improve human rights policy and practice within the GAA-EL membership and agribusiness sector. It represents an important first step to building awareness, understanding and capacity around the human rights agenda.
• This toolkit offers a sector-specific lens through which to understand the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and operationalize them in agribusiness supply chains. It was created by human rights experts and agribusiness leaders to simplify the UNGPs and dive deep into human rights issues that are most salient in the agriculture sector.
• It includes explanations of key concepts related to human rights; a high-level analysis of human rights risk as it pertains to agribusiness; an overview of the benefits and opportunities for benchmarking human rights performance across the sector; a step-by-step guide to strengthening company performance on human rights with accompanying case studies from sector leaders within each step; and a library of resources to learn more.
• This toolkit will advance the sector by building capacity of agribusiness leaders to understand human rights risk and act accordingly, in alignment with GAA-EL’s mission to act as a peer-learning and knowledge-sharing platform to foster sector-wide contribution to the SDGs. In addition to the publishing the guide, GAA-EL aims to socialize it though a variety of mediums to elevate this challenge in the sector as well as solutions. Bespoke training opportunities for GAA-EL members have been rolled out beginning in 2021 to build on the guide within member operations.

Download the toolkit here.

For those implementing the toolkit within their agribusiness operations, a trainer guidance note and customizable slide deck for trainers to use has also been developed for WBCSD member companies. For more information and to access the additional training materials, contact Melanie Levine at levine@wbcsd.org.