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Human Rights Impact Measurement: the right approach
15 October 2024
'Human rights impact’ means different things to different companies. So, what’s the best way of measuring it?
Defining ‘Impact Measurement’ can help you to demonstrate your company’s longer-term impacts. It also describes your commitment to engaging rightsholders through your business transformation. And for those companies facing new reporting requirements through EU legislation, it can support that too.
We caught up with experts Milena Gropp and Frankie Whitwell to learn how twentyfifty collaborates with clients to embed effective Impact Measurement into Human Rights Due Diligence.
When twentyfifty talks about human rights ‘Impact Measurement’, what do we mean exactly?
Frankie: That’s a good question, because impact is different for different businesses! Every client has different desired impacts.
Milena: In the context of twentyfifty’s Impact Measurement offer, we’re talking about impact that is very long term and systemic – for instance a long-term change for a rightsholder community.
You can think about it in terms of strategic impact for the company as well – identifying the changes a company has undergone as part of a project.
Frankie: It incorporates the views of all sorts of people involved in the business and the supply chain. And it ties into our twentyfifty vision [‘a world in which sustainable and responsible businesses thrive; and where everyone, everywhere, lives in dignity and flourishes’].
When should a client begin an Impact Measurement process – and what’s the typical process that they could expect?
Milena: Before we begin Impact Measurement, your company needs to be aware of its most salient human rights issues, or be clear on the gaps it needs to close. These are steps where twentyfifty can also help.
Impact Measurement defines how to close those gaps, and the impact you will achieve by closing the gaps.
First, we identify an impact pathway. Not everything counts as impact, so we work with the client to understand the different levels of influence – from activities to outcome, output and impact. We look at how it can be measured. What’s the baseline? Where do we want to go, and how can we make that happen?
From there, we create action plans to support implementation – and as this is part of most of our projects, twentyfifty does it very well.
Thirdly, we carry out an in-depth assessment. This helps us to understand how a certain initiative is changing the lives of rightsholders. This is core to our values and can only come from genuine engagement with rightsholders.
Case study: Hershey
In 2023, we worked with Hershey to create an impact framework to inform strategic programming that supports the American snacking company’s human rights agenda.
Expanding on the saliency assessment work we conducted with Hershey the year before, we examined interlinkage between salient issues, strategic gaps and existing best practice research.
Our approach aimed to consolidate a framework that demonstrates how addressing all salient human rights issues can foster an overall positive impact. We ensured that each salient human rights issue was working towards the same goal.
Many companies already conduct ESG (environmental, social and governance) reports. What value can Impact Measurement add to this?
Frankie: It makes reporting more robust.
ESG reports usually have impressive tangible outputs – such as ‘number of people trained in human rights-related areas’ – alongside a ‘big picture’ view of global impacts and Sustainable Development Goals.
Sometimes, however, there can be an information gap between these two sections, where the steps taken to contribute to those bigger goals are not fully articulated.
Impact Measurement bridges this gap.
Milena: That’s right. Also, impact reporting is often explored at the end of a project. What we do is help companies to think about it strategically from the start.
And with new EU legislation coming into force for many companies, it’s going to be really important to bring impact in across the whole due diligence cycle.
Ah yes, the legislation! A number of twentyfifty clients are in scope for CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) and CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive). How will Impact Measurement support them?
Frankie: There are managers out there who are exclusively focused on CSRD. twentyfifty Impact Measurement will help them to capture how effective their programmes have been in terms of achieving impact and reducing human rights risk.
Milena: But, of course, its value goes beyond compliance too. For companies carrying out Impact Measurement, it is really about demonstrating long-term commitment and transformation. If you want to write public corporate statements on ESG, for instance, then Impact Measurement will help to support the credibility of your statements.
What does twentyfifty bring to Impact Measurement that’s particularly unique?
Frankie: twentyfifty offers the technical understanding to help companies to reduce human rights risks – rather than applying a generic Impact Measurement model to the area of human rights. Our consultants use deep technical expertise to help clients to develop a pathway to clearly measure and evidence their work.
Milena: We also have a very practical approach. Rather than delivering a very high-level impact pathway, we make sure it fits into everyday lives. And through our experience in engaging vulnerable rightsholders, we help ensure that it makes sense for them. We can build your in-house capacity and skills too.
And of course, as a team we have a desire to create impact, which has been part of our vision for over 20 years!
Interested in learning more about Impact Measurement? Please contact us at info@twentyfify.co.uk.
