The HRCA is a comprehensive tool designed to detect human rights risks in company operations. It covers all internationally recognized human rights and their impact on all stakeholders, including employees, local communities, customers and host governments.
The tool incorporates a database of 195 questions and 947 indicators, each measuring the implementation of human rights in company policies and procedures. The database incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more than 80 human rights instruments and International Labour Organization conventions. The standards and indicators in the database are constantly updated to incorporate feedback from company users and developments in international human rights law.
The tool is available online to subscribers, and the Web interface allows companies to develop a tailored assessment tool from the database by screening out questions based on country risk and features of the company operation. Companies answer the relevant questions and receive a final report identifying areas of compliance and non-compliance in their operations. Numeric scores allow companies to track their performance from year to year.
The development of the HRCA involved a six-year process involving more than 80 companies and human rights groups from more than 14 European countries. The process was designed to ensure that the standards and indicators in the tool reflects international human rights law and the on-the-ground business realities of multinational companies.
- The HRCA can be used in a number of different forms depending on company profile and needs. HRCA tools include:
- The full HRCA database, which allows companies to build a checklist according to their size, activities and countries of operation.
- The HRCA Quick Check, a free, condensed version of the full tool
- The Dalit Discrimination Check, covering caste discrimination in South Asia
- The South Africa HRCA
- The China Business and Social Sustainability Check
The Danish Institute for Human Rights also develops tailored checklists for companies and industries.
What does the HRCA do?
International human rights law is written to be applied and enforced by states. In recent years a growing realization of the human rights impacts of companies—both negative and positive—has resulted in calls for the development of business standards based on international human rights principles. The HRCA fills this gap.
The HRCA consists of a database of questions and indicators to measure company policies, processes and performance. Each question and indicator is derived from international human rights and labour instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization Core Conventions. The online checklist format allows companies to measure their performance using these standards as a benchmark.
How does the HRCA work?
The main HRCA database consists of 195 questions covering the full range of human rights. Companies can customize this database to their operations using the Build a Checklist feature. This feature targets questions and indicators to the company’s profile, activities and countries of operation.
After designing and saving the company checklist, the leader of the company assessment exercise can assign questions to members of the company assessment team, who can then answer the questions online or offline, either independently or with the assistance of the assessment leader. Once all the indicators and questions have been answered, the assessment leader receives a report that identifies compliance gaps. A report can also be exported into Microsoft Word to share with other managers or additional company staff.